#rahmemmanuel

[azspot]

After stints in Congress and as Obama’s top aide, he became best known for being the Chicago mayor who closed schools, privatized public infrastructure, raked in campaign cash from financial industry donors profiting off his city’s pension funds, and oversaw a police department that set up a secret interrogation site and murdered 17-year-old Black teenager Laquan McDonald.

Rahm’s Reward

[azspot]

Homeless in America

While I hope that everyone is having a reasonably pleasant holiday season, it’s worth remembering that this is an awful time of the year for the (at least) hundreds of thousands of people who live without stable shelter in America. This is partly because of the emotional trauma of being without a home on holidays …

It is unconscionable that America’s political class has generally chosen to not do anything to help people who have to survive living without shelter under such conditions.

A perfect example? Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel, who has both a) decimated city services for poor people in general, and b) taken to evicting homeless people from viaducts and other places where they might find at least some tiny amount of shelter from the elements. In some cases, the Chicago Police Department literally throws away homeless people’s tents and belongings. It is far easier to, say, find a brokerage firm than an overnight warming shelter in Chicago. The same for mental health clinics and other manifestations of the social safety network. This is as Rahm Emmanuel would prefer it. In this, he’s much like a lot of Chicago’s Democratic mayors, who have controlled City Hall without interruption since 1931. But more so than a majority of his predecessors, Rahm has demolished the commons and the city’s social network in favor of privatization and austerity.

The misapplication and abuse by holier-than-thou leftists of the word “neoliberal” rightly has been a common point of comment and ridicule on the blog over the last year+. But we should all feel fine calling this particular spade a spade: Rahm is neoliberalism incarnate. He’s a revolting politician who might be the worst mayor for Chicago’s poor people since Richard J. Daley. He prioritizes profit over people (especially poor people of color) so shamelessly that it makes my eyes bleed. While arguments to the effect of “Democrats and Republicans are definitely equally bad” are, 99% of the time, more or less absurd, Rahm is the 1% where I’d probably be inclined to just say “yeah, you’re right.” It pains me that I managed to live in Chicago for three years but never resided during a mayoral election year where he was candidate. Voting against him would quite possibly have been the vote I’d’ve relished the most in my sixteen voting years.

[philbo68zz]

Spread this like peanut butter please!! It's going down in Chi-Town. 100's of video and audio files of incidents of police use of force. Rahm Emmanuel doesn't want to resign to he fires his Chief Superintendent, replaces him with a Black Man and think folks gon forget? No sir.