Is Chicago China?
“Chicago, Chicago, it’s a wonderful town…” But it’s also China.
Say what? No, I’m not talking about the Szechuan restaurants, some of which are undoubtedly pretty good (I didn’t try them). But on my recent trip to the Windy City for the Heartland’s Institute’s climate conference, I began to be struck by the similarity in system between the City of Chicago and the (if you wanna call it that) People’s Republic of China.
Forget communism, socialism or whatever, they are both perfected examples of crony capitalism. In Chicago and Beijing, Shanghai, etc., it’s not what you know, but who you know. And it’s been like that for a long time.
Now Chicago is not as brutal as China, obviously, but in some ways it’s worse. Someone named Daley has been the city’s mayor since somewhere in the Early Paleolithic Age. Chairman Mao didn’t last as long. Being a Daley in Chicago is equivalent to being a Medici in Florence – with less danger of a violent death. The patronage system seems to extend from somewhere a few miles south of Canada to the northern reaches of Kentucky. Everyone here appears to accept this as part of the game.
Last weekend the Wall Street Journal had an interesting article about the three hundred people who rule China and are connected by their own special super private line of “red phones.” That could be Chicago. In fact, they should adopt it here. Obama and Rahm Emanuel could be linked in with David Axelrod and Bill Ayers. Maybe it should be red Blackberrys.
Now I’m being sarcastic here, but I think this is indicative of the serious problem we’re facing now. Crony capitalism can work to a point. Chicago still looks better than LA at the moment. But the strains are starting to show. Crony capitalism is a dependency system. It has obvious economic weaknesses that stem from its obsessive need for control. And now it’s all about to crack with unions, pensions, too many people working for the city and state, etc., etc.
Nobody can pay for it anymore. But you can be sure of one thing. People named Daley (some of them anyway) will not starve.
Chicago: Vote early and vote often.
Chicago: Being dead ought not stop you from voting.
Chicago: The Democratic Party in action.
I will reveal how old I am with this, but I lived in the South Side of Chicago (47th street) years before there was a Daley as mayor.
When the government can dole out goodies and influence, what do you expect? The culture in the west is totally rotten. Mr. Simon you contributed to this rot as a young man.
We have to pay for the consequences of our actions. The left is just a destructive piece of sh.t.
Mr. Simon:
“I began to be struck by the similarity in system between the City of Chicago and the (if you wanna call it that) People’s Republic of China.”
Well, to answer your question…No. Chicago is NOT China.
China is FAR more business-friendly.
Cheaper cost of living, too.
Safer as well. I’m living in China now. I’ll let my kids walk home after dark and take taxis by themselves here. I’d never do that in Chicago.
Of course Chicago is not China;There’s prosperity in China;the schools work in China;China lacks a useless, welfare dependent poliical class,the police forces are not as corrupt,or as ineffectual,and finally the food is better.
Also…China has the one child policy…Chicago should try it.
Huh? China’s one-child policy is heading the country toward demographic collapse, as an aging generation faces being supported in its old age by a succeeding generation half its size.
Why do you think Chicago or anywhere in America would need a one-child policy? Are you an old Population Bomber? The ghost of Thomas Malthus sure gets around.
Right on! Instead of a one-child policy, the succeeding generation should be trying to DOUBLE itself. That way they can better take care of the aging generation. Then, the next generation can double itself to take care of the current generation. Then they, in turn, can double themselves to take care of…
I think this is how China came to the one-child policy in the first place. If you’re a Christian, please consider the “Go forth and multiply” command as a “mission accomplished”.
As long as we are making absurdly extreme arguments, then by all means let us halve the population size every generation. It wouldn’t take long for such a practice to accomplish the goals of the New Calvinists masquerading as “environmentalists” and whatnot to accomplish their true goal of eliminating humans.
It’s remarkable to me how much similarity the human-hating “eco” and “population control” movements have in common with the human-hating segments of the Muslim religion we see today in “Palestine”, Iran, and elesewhere. Deny all dignity and worth of human life. Take every opportunity, take every chance, to eliminate it, condemn it, vilify it, all in the name of some shadowy higher purpose you can’t even identify.
The population Bomb adherents are impervious to the reality of declining global fertility rates, population growth peaking by 2050 and then sharply declining, impervious to the complete failure of the tired predictions of famine and shortages of everything. No, population control is a religion, a subset of the ecofundamentalist religion of Man Bad/The Planet Good.
And they are completely ignorant that their belief system is directly descended from the Calvinist Puritans, who also believed in the fundamental and incorrigible iniquity of humans and life in this Earth, and who believed that the highest way to live was to suppress, contain and crush every aspect of the human spirit that gave joy to life.
Have you ever been to China?
Despite the differences in nomenclature and nominal ideology, all systems that transfer the control of property into the hands of an oligarchy — including the sort of social-welfare state the United States has become — reduce to crony capitalism in practice. Indeed, it could hardly be any other way.
After that, the dynamics of giantism take over, and the suffering begins.
The Bill of Rights should have included separation of business and state. I know it is supposed to be in the structure of the Constitution, just as religious freedom was, but for the same reasons as we included the 1st Amendment it would have been good to make this explicit too. Freedom of religion, for example, has been harder to undermine than rights that weren’t called out specifically in the Bill of Rights.
Two humorous cartoons that relate to this topic.
The first at http://drawfortruth.wordpress.com/category/compalinsons/ compares the “Guiding Principles” of Sarah Palin (conservatives) and Barack Obama (liberals).
The second shows Obama as a product of Chicago at http://drawfortruth.wordpress.com/2010/03/18/one-nation/
One thing that always puzzled me is why Boeing moved their corporate HQ to Chicago ten years or so ago. The finalists were Chicago, Denver, and Dallas. Chicago must of made them an offer they couldn’t refuse, because it’s certainly no great shakes as a place to live, I say from experience.
I wonder how it’s working out for them.
But the foods better right? Chicago that is!!
#11 promoguy:
Yes the food is better (because our dogs are fatter, more tasty) and it’s much cleaner (actually parts of Chicago are very nice).
Mr. Simon’s observations are absolutely correct, but it’s regrettable that people are only now starting to notice the peculiarities of Chicago politics. Given the enormous Chicago imprint on the Obama administration, one might expect Conservatives to make a point of familiarizing themselves with the Windy City’s unorthodox political culture, in hopes of better understanding those who now control the reins of power in Washington, D.C. (i.e., know your enemy). But nearly two years into the Obama presidency, most Conservatives remain as clueless about Chicago as they were in 2008. So it remains as true as ever that the President’s opponents have — as Mr. Obama once said of candidate John McCain’s campaign — “no idea what they’re up against.”
At its founding, Chicago was built on graft, political corruption and crime. People flocked to Chicago in the late 1800′s and early 1900′s because it was a booming city with few pretensions and a prevailing “anything goes” attitude. The immigrants (Irish, Italian, Greek, Polish, Eastern European Jewish, Bohemian, etc.) who flooded in found social mobility to be more easily realized than in WASP-controlled cities on the East Coast. And criminals, con men and the power-hungry from all parts made a beeline to the wildly tolerant party town on Lake Michigan, since it was fertile ground for anybody who was street smart and tough … especially if one was able to make the right connections. By the early 1900′s, politically-connected Irish and Italian criminal gangs (made of men from — or descended from — countries with long histories of political oppression, and accordingly, where common people had little regard for the rule of law) had the run of the town. Eventually, the Italian gangs (namely the Al Capone syndicate, or “Outfit”) muscled the Irish out of the hugely profitable rackets, but rather than sidetrack itself by battling on ethnic or territorial lines, the ever-adaptive Outfit allied and integrated itself with the burgeoning Irish Democratic political machine. Thus, from its early days, the Chicago political machine has been built on a system of strategic alliances, where power and money trump whatever differences individual groups may have with each other. And over the last century, the Chicago machine has continued to evolve and metastasize — other ethnic, identity and ideological groups integrated into the machine (especially as new immigrant and migrant groups arrived/arrive), as did the all-important downtown business community — but, as ever, the machine continues to run the city with an iron grip.
Ultimately, despite being situated in the Upper Midwest, Chicago is essentially a corrupt Southern European city which, for all intents and purposes, runs on an approximation of the old European feudal system. For over a century, the nexus of business, politics and organized crime has been the “Holy Trinity” of Chicago. To equate Chicago with China is hardly a stretch (ironically, the “Chinatown street crew” has plenty of clout at City Hall, as politically-connected Italian mobsters from the South Side’s notorious Bridgeport neighborhood — whence came the Daley family — still run most of the rackets in neighboring Chinatown, in spite of the presence of Chinese gangs).
But despite the fact that a clique from the Left fringes of the Chicago political machine now owns the White House (and thus, more or less runs the world), Conservatives continue to be in the dark about Chicago culture and Chicago politics. Comments like #5 & #6 are all too typical of what one frequently encounters in Conservative political circles. Maybe it’s because of the sudden rise in street gang violence in parts the South Side, but Conservatives often mistake Chicago for Detroit, envisioning the Windy City as some sort of crumbling, poverty-stricken, post-apocalyptic rust-belt wasteland. But the reality is, for the most part, nothing could be further from the truth. All things considered, Chicago is a magnificent city. It’s beautiful, clean, vibrant and prosperous. And although it may come as a surprise to many readers, Chicago is easily the most livable big city in America … all which is part of the problem, for as long as half (or more) of the city’s roughly 3 million residents go about their daily lives in an affluent, bustling metropolis of skyscrapers, gentrified neighborhoods and bars/night clubs, it’s ridiculously easy to overlook the problems that lie just beneath the surface. In other words, what’s the matter with a little political corruption if the trains run on time?
So when another once-seedy neighborhood gentrifies and becomes a haven for trendies, and bars and sidewalk cafes keep overflowing with booze-soaked single girls out on the town to have some fun (and guys spending money like wildfire to impress them), who’s really all that upset that the Mayor keeps spending the city into a financial black hole? Let the good times roll, and let the finance nerds at City Hall worry about finances in on Monday morning (never mind that the finance nerds were patronage hires).
And that’s at the heart of what’s wrong with Chicago (and Illinois), as well as what’s wrong with New York, New Jersey, California, Greece, Britain, Spain, Sweden, Belgium, Portugal, etc.
It’s not hard to see the problems when a city, state, or nation falls apart in spectacular fashion. Everybody was aware that Detroit, Cleveland, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, St. Louis and other cities were going down hill. While most of those cities’ fates were tied to disappearing industries, affluent, middle class and upper middle class residents still had a couple of obvious choices when it became obvious that the sh** was hitting the fan:
A.) throw the politicians out of office and elect new business-friendly officials who would institute policies designed to draw new businesses to town,
B.) move the hell out of town.
Most opted for option B.), and thus, with the general disappearance of the middle and upper middle classes, those towns became giant repositories of the welfare state, with corrupt, victimology-preaching welfare state overlords holding most elected offices.
But with the exception of portions of the South Side (which does kind of resemble Detroit or Baltimore, and where most of the gang violence goes down), the average Chicagoan can easily be forgiven for overlooking the fact that Chicago is spiraling into the financial abyss, or that a mobbed-up (literally) corrupt power elite runs the city with virtual impunity. Besides, citizens are powerless to change the system in Chicago anyway, so why waste time worrying about it?
Conservatives, on the other hand, would be armed with a much better understanding of the crew that sits in the White House if they’d become better acquainted with the labyrinth of connections and and political underground tunnels that lie at the heart of Chicago culture and politics. Maybe Chicago is destined to be misunderstood because it sits in the middle of the country, far removed from the gaze of the Boston/Manhattan/Washington D.C. political & media establishment (including Fox News and conservative talk radio). Whatever the reason, the fundamental lack of understanding regarding Chicago is a great detriment to Conservatives, and ultimately a great detriment to America.
Terrific analysis!
I live here, and you’ve told me things I never knew.
Yes, most of us shrug our shoulders when we think about the corrupt politics. Oddly enough, the biggest complaints I hear about the regime, aside from property taxes and the outlandish sales taxes, are the new hateful parking meters and the horrible recyling garbage cans that clutter up our alleys.
There are many amazing and beautiful things to be found in Chicago. It’s America’s unknown city–an entire country unto itself.
I agree about the south side, but I wouldn’t be caught strolling around the west side at night, either. The west siders just don’t have the political clout the south siders do.
Question: What’s the difference between the Chicago City Council and the Chinese Communist Party Politburo?
Answer: Well, for a start, the members of the Chinese Politburo are more youthful, dynamic, honest, and willing to consider fresh new ideas.
All this and yet no mention of ShoreBank?
(T.S.: is there a book (or website etc.) you would recommend as a primer on current and recent Chicago politics?)
T.S. (#13), thank you for a very nicely-written analysis of politics-as-usual in Chicago. I’ve got to dispute a couple of points, however. I’ve lived in the greater Chicago area since childhood, apart from a stint in college in Wisconsin and a year in Atlanta. Altogether, been in the area for more than 30 years. You wrote, “Conservatives often mistake Chicago for Detroit, envisioning the Windy City as some sort of crumbling, poverty-stricken, post-apocalyptic rust-belt wasteland. But the reality is, for the most part, nothing could be further from the truth. All things considered, Chicago is a magnificent city. It’s beautiful, clean, vibrant and prosperous. And although it may come as a surprise to many readers, Chicago is easily the most livable big city in America …”
The economy here has weathered some of the storms which seem to hit the coast, and swings of the business cycle seem less pronounced than in non-midwestern locales. If it wasn’t for the dynamic economy here, we’d (my wife and I) would have left a long time ago. Even so, we are now looking to leave the greater metro area and perhaps the region all together. Why? Consider the following:
1. Illinois generally, and especially Chicago, rank as among most unfree of U.S. states. The hand of government is heavy here, and grows heavier all the time, from anti-2nd amendment laws and controls on hunting to zoning ordnances, you name it.
2. Taxes in Cook County, the largest county included within Chicago, are very high, and about to get higher. Sales tax is ten percent. Associated costs to do business are steep, in everything from conventional space to parking your car downtown ($7-8 dollars/hour by meter). Very expensive state in which to do business.
3. Quality of life is declining, by a variety of measures. The only place affordable housing is being built is in farthest outer-ring suburbs, which are 1-2 hours from the city by car, and not always accessible by mass transit. Roads, including the interstates and toll roads, are in a terible state of repair, and extremely crowded. There is less and less open and undeveloped space, though in defense of the city and county, the Forest Preserve System is unique and valuable (if expensive and administered in corrupt fashion). The public schools, especially in Chicago proper, are among the worst in the nation. Of course, Arne Duncan, the former head of the Chicago Public Schools, was promoted for his efforts and now screws up schools nationally for Team Obama. A more honest pol would have fallen on his sword, but we all know there aren’t any of those in these parts!
4. The city and environs are among the most leftist political enclaves in America, with the exception of some collar counties, which are conservative or centrist. As one who believes in the balance-of-power, to limit the damage public officials can do, this is highly problematical to say the least. The GOP is an afterthought in local politics, let alone independent parties. No effective checks exist on the power of Boss Daley, who rules as a modern-day Huey Long, albeit a smoother and more sophisticated version of him.
5. Illinois ranks as one of the most corrupt states in the union, and Chicago as one of the most corrupt cities. More to the point, the state in a very precarious position financially, ranking with a cohort of perhaps half a dozen very badly-off states just behind California in terms of fiscal sickness. Illinois is going broke, and the Dems aren’t doing anything meaningful about it. When the ship sinks, it is not going to be pretty.
I won’t recite all of the positive things about the city, as you doubtless know them already… my point is that when I look at this town, I apparently see something very different than you do. Gotta hand it to you, though, the city has an impressive downtown and skyline. Like Mussolini, Boss Daley knows how to make the trains run on time (more or less, anyway) and keep the grass trimmed and the medians landscaped. And like Il Duce, Daley is essentially a corporatist who believes in complete power of govermment, i.e., a liberal fascist c.f. Jonah Goldberg.
In sum, Chicago isn’t Detroit, but it is well along that road. What saved us was the diversity of the economy here; we were not so dependent upon one industry (auto making) as the Motor City was (though when big steel left town 20 years back, it was every bit as ugly and wretching as what’s happening in Detroit).
Your points are all valid. But Chicago’s dynamic economy and enjoyable city life (away from the South Side and parts of the West Side) have given the corrupt politicians/rulers and their fiscal insanity cover. No doubt, the city and the state are on the road to bankruptcy and oblivion. In that regard, Chicago is like California and, to a lesser degree, New York/New Jersey: on the surface, everything looks good, and it’s easy to get suckered by the mirage that all is well. It’s only when you look beyond the surface that you see that big trouble is on its way.
California, New York and Chicago/Illinois have been blessed with such dynamic economies and so much wealth that those in power take it as their birthright to spend as much as they can, taking the sources of their revenue for granted. And the more left-leaning the government, the more recklessly they’ve spent, as if business exists for the sole purpose of funding politicians’ coffers. But that can only last for so long. Sooner or later, something’s got to give.
The Rust Belt paid dearly for operating in that fashion. States like Michigan and Ohio (outside of Columbus) crashed and burned with vigor. But in better climes, where the living is good, the self-destruction is less obvious as one goes about one’s daily life. And that’s enabled politicians to keep the party train rolling on.
So ultimately, people — especially Conservatives — in states like CA, IL, NY, NJ, etc. frequently get squeezed into looking for greener pastures. I can’t tell you how many fiscal conservatives I encounter from New York, Jersey & Chicago who gaze longingly at Austin and Phoenix as Utopian safe havens from liberal fiscal insanity. But if the conservatives flee from liberal states because they’re sick of being in the minority, they only guarantee future liberal hegemony in those states. Unfortunately, when that happens, nominally Republican congressional districts in the suburbs swing to the Democrats — and it it’s never conservative Blue Dog Democrats who take those seats. And insofar as that only helps the Left consolidate its power in Washington, that’s bad for America (and ultimately bad for the world too).
Actually, I was just making a throwaway joke. Sorry to offend.
As a Westerner, I have a certain affinity for Chicago. It was the Wild West before we were. I’m also not at all naive about Chicago political culture. My father went to college there during the reign of the first Daley in the 1960s, and all of the fun that came with that. I won’t disagree with a single thing you said.
And incidentally, Chicago-style pizza trumps New York style any day. Considering how many refugees Arizona has absorbed from both, we know the difference better than you would think. And you can’t find a good pizza in China either.
I wish i could defend my adoptive city but alas i can not.
Someone named Daley has been the city’s mayor since somewhere in the Early Paleolithic Age.
I understand that this is meant as an exaggeration, but, just for the record, none of the mayors from December 1976, when Richard J. Daley died, to April 1989, when Richard M. Daley became mayor, was a member of the Daley family. IMHO, both Richard J. and Richard M. were/are better mayors than any of those who served as mayor during that period.
if they’re like China, can we imprison them and market their organs to pay for the damage they caused society?
I’ve decided for now to call the State-Corporate complex Mercantilism. If you study history, that was the basic pattern of the era of genuine European Imperialism. The word is over-used, so we forget that, for example, the opium trade was literally forced on the Chinese at the point of a gun.
The precise value of Smith’s “Wealth of nations” was overturning the belief that government patronage was necessary to wealth accumulation.
In all political and economic thought, we must remember that the goal is to eradicate–and where possible structurally prohibit–excessive concentrations of power. We want neither hegemonic States, nor a hegemonic Federal Government. We want neither monopolistic cartels, nor a government that regulates every last bit of business activity.
The middle way is always best.
“” … Forget communism, socialism or whatever, they are both perfected examples of crony capitalism. “”
Rubbish.
Capitalism is no longer Capitalism if any adjective is employed with it but laissez-faire! No more so than is Good any such thing if mixed with evil or white paint any longer white when mixed with black!
The “governments” of both Chicago and the 2.5 million square miles of other brutally enslaved People’s sovereign territory that together with 1.3 million square miles of its own, the Peking predators like to call “China,” demonstrate near-perfect examples of cronyism, AKA gangsterism AKA fascism.
Isn’t ‘Crony Capitalism’ some kind of oxymoron? Would it be more accurate to describe Chicago as an oligarchy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligarchy
To a lesser degree the same thing can be said about the entire USA given how so many of our ruling class went to the same schools, rule for life, appoint their wives to Senate seats, have their wives or sons inherit a Senate or Congressional seat.
#7…..once again;clear, concise, insightful…thank you.
One difference between China and Chicago is that the people of Chicago could vote the corrupt out of office. So if they don’t does that mean they are ignorant, stupid or corrupt? And if they are wouldn’t that go double for the people of California, Louisiana, and New York? And if so many of our voters suffer from one of those three conditions does that call into question our whole democratic system?
Ah, Democracy what a two edged sword.
M.D. Drapier,
I can’t speak for T.S., but I’ve found Mike Royko’s “Boss” quite enlightening. Unauthorized bio of Richard J., with alot of background on the old Irish and Italian influences.
Really, anything Royko has ever written…there are several anthologies.
I’ve read Royko’s syndicated columns since I was a kid, so count me as one conservative who isn’t surprised at the crew now occupying the WH. A shame Royko’s gone.
Cheers,
Gino
Apropos Mike Royko, I had dinner a couple of times during the conference at Stefani’s 473, said to be a big Royko hangout. I liked it. Also, it was only a block or so from the Marriott where the conference was being held. I tried to get into the legendary Frontera Grill, but the maitre d’ told me there was a three hour wait! This was on a Tuesday at seven.
chicago I love you
EU TE AMO DAQUI DO BRASIL
What fun I’ve had reading the article and the comments from all you Chicagoans. I’ve only visited once, and enjoyed my two day stay.
But that’s not why I’m writing.
“Crony capitalism” was also talked about in Bill Whittle’s Afterburner, “We Are Iron Men.” Important concept that the left routinely gets wrong.
#15 M.B. Drapier:
Sorry about the delayed response. Pajamas Media’s spam filters apparently threw my reply out, probably because it contained several live links. The filters must have confused it with those blog comments from China that hawk knock off Dolce & Gabbana handbags. By the way, hit me up if you’re looking for knock off D&G handbags
Here’s the reply that I tried to send last night, minus the live links. You’ll have to drag & drop the URL’s into your browser:
It’s hard to come up with one book or website that comprehensively covers recent Chicago political corruption. The local Chicago media acknowledges, and sometimes makes a grand spectacle of, political corruption, but if one pays close attention, one will eventually see that they they dance around the issue more than they cover it (rarely do they cross Boss Daley). So to get a good sense of of the Chicago scene, you’ve almost got to be embedded in it. If you’re in Chicago, and you keep your eyes and ears open, you’ll get a decent idea of the way things work (although most locals don’t know that much about the power arrangements, alliances and back room deals).
Unfortunately, that doesn’t do much to help somebody from outside of Chicago to get a primer on Chicago culture, politics and corruption. But there are a few websites, columns and books that are worth checking out. Gino makes a very good (#26) suggestion by recommending Mike Royko’s “Boss” (about the original Mayor Daley), even though that book was written in the 1970′s, it’s a good for understanding the Daleys’ background. Here are some other suggestions:
BOOKS:
1.) “The Outfit” by Gus Russo (2001) — A must-read primer/history of Chicago organized crime (from the Al Capone era through the 1980′s) and its extensive ties with/influence on business, politics and entertainment. From Library Journal: “Russo shows how … ‘The Outfit’ … helped elect several presidents, created Las Vegas, and bankrolled Hollywood.”
2.) “When Corruption Was King” by Robert Cooley (2005) — Another must-read for anyone who wants to understand how Chicago works. Robert Cooley was a lawyer for the Chicago mob who eventually flipped, wore a wire and took down many in his wake. Here’s what Publisher’s Weekly said: “former Chicago mob attorney Cooley engagingly recounts his role in sparking Operation Gambat, a sweeping federal corruption probe into Chicago’s political and judicial arenas. Operation Gambat succeeded in documenting the extensive ties between the mob and local government, thanks largely to Cooley’s cooperation…”
Interestingly enough, the Socialist Worker website has a good run down of Cooley’s book
(http://socialistworker.org/2005-2/557/557_13_ChicagoCorruption.shtml):
“(W)hat has been hidden is how the corruption was organized by the “City’s Fathers”–the mobsters, the politicians and the businessmen.
Robert Cooley’s When Corruption Was King is an insider’s account of how the mob and their Democratic Party allies ruled the “city that works” in the 1970s and ’80s–especially how they “fixed” the judiciary.”
LOCAL MEDIA:
1.) John Kass: chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-johnkass,0,5724822.columnist
Kass usually does a good job covering mobsters, Mayor Daley, Rahm Emanuel, Barack Obamam, the Chicago Democratic Machine and the Republican/Democratic “Combine” (arrangement) in Illinois politics for the Chicago Tribune. Unfortunately, Kass seems to have been de-fanged as of late, and his subject matter is now as likely to be barbeque, soccer or the White Sox as it is to be political corruption and graft.
2.) Chicago Tribune “Neighborhoods for sale” series:
chicagotribune.com/news/watchdog/chi-zoning-storygallery,0,3235925.storygallery
Perhaps a little bit too much “nuts-and-bolts” Chicago neighborhood politics for some (admittedly, not as sexy as the tales of mobsters, Daleys, Kennedys, casinos, Frank Sinatra and movie stars recounted in Russo’s “The Outfit”), but this investigative series gives a good idea about how Chicago works. The Tribune reports on how “real estate interests” (often mobbed-up) “have funneled millions of dollars to the aldermen who dictate what can be built.”
3.) Sun-Times — The Outfit on Trial: The Chicago Sun-Times maintains a good blog that covers the Chicago mob’s legal troubles, called “The Outfit On Trial”:
blogs.suntimes.com/mob/
It rarely deals with politics (at least not overtly), but it’s still worth reading to keep an eye on the politically-connected Chicago mob.
WEBSITES/BLOGS:
1.) Big Government’s recent 3-part series on South Side Irish Machine boss Alderman Ed Burke: Must-read material on how the Machine works. Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government exposes the Machine as the Chicago media never would.
biggovernment.com/jpeterson/2010/04/08/alderman-edward-burke-top-machine-boss-of-obamas-chicago-where-barack-learned-chicago-style-politics-part-1/
biggovernment.com/jpeterson/2010/04/12/alderman-edward-burke-top-machine-boss-of-obamas-chicago-where-barack-learned-chicago-style-politics/
biggovernment.com/jpeterson/2010/04/15/alderman-edward-burke-part-iii-top-machine-boss-of-obamas-chicago/
2.) Big Journalism: Tony Rezko, Barack Obama, the FBI mole, and the Somnolent Chicago MSM (May 19, 2010): Once again, a Breitbart website does more reporting on Chicago political intrigue than the Chicago media:
bigjournalism.com/acary/2010/05/19/tony-rezko-barack-obama-the-fbi-mole-and-the-chicago-msm/
3.) Gangsearch: Chicago Outfit and the Machine: Not the flashiest website, but full of great links that give the reader a decent picture of mob involvement in Chicago politics:
gangresearch.net/ChicagoGangs/outfit/index.html
4.) Hillbuzz: Although it’s not focused on Chitown corruption (it’s ostensibly a pro-Hillary PUMA blog), Hillbuzz occasionally has blog posts that describe Chicago politics and corruption about as well as any site on the net (if you can get past the daily fixation on Michelle Obama’s fashion sense & big booty). You just have to keep your eye on Hillbuzz from time to time, as on-the-ground and behind-the-scenes Chicago political material invariably pop up as topics:
Hillbuzz.org
It’s Liberalism Mr Simon Liberalism. And wherever it is it’s killing us.
lol Chicago.. I visited that place once.. Beautiful place and friendly people ! Not everyone is corrupt, making stereotype based on the experience of some idiots is bad !