Rahm, 'J.C.', and Garry might as well be shouting 'King Love' at the corner of Montrose and Kedzie or Fullerton and Kedzie... This is not Hollywood nonsense but as real as a Chicago emergency room on a Saturday or Sunday night
There is nothing more dangerous on Chicago's streets that a tough guy "cop", clueless about the nuanced reality of the city's drug gangs, playing Hollywood and out there to prove he's not only the "smartest guy in the room" but also the toughest. Nobody's going to go through a real door in the real Englewood or the real South Chicago in front of a jackass (I know, there are better words, let's be family tonight) like that.
Yet today, Chicago is facing a three-fer (actually a "four-fer") of pseudo tough guys (and one gal) playing right into the hands of two of Chicago's most dangerous drug gangs — the Latin Kings and Black P. Stones (and their "People" allies) — by trying to use the equally clueless Chicago Sun-Times (just bought by a couple of Rahm's multi-millionaire buddies) to play a gang scene for Rahm's Wilmette alumni associates and Pritzker buddies.
Trouble is, in Chicago those Glocks are not Hollywood props or some kid's Internet toys.
Trouble is, the scene they are playing out in Chicago in 2012 would have been rejected if some young script writer had tried to submit it for seasons three, four, or five of "The Wire."
Trouble is, it's making Chicago streets and schools more dangerous by the day. And the warm weather is not limited to the current winter.
But this is all a Wall Street kind of thing, "Free Market" capitalism and all that.
Say whaaaa?
Let's be precise. Like Rahm, Chicago's drug gangs are fans of the "Free Market". Just because most of them don't bother reading (and getting excited under the covers) about all that nifty cool stuff in "Atlas Shrugged" or hanging out with John Galt Solutions on the 19th floor of 125 S. Clark St. doesn't mean they don't understand how to secure market share and all that. (Heck, some of those who survive long enough understand markets so clearly they could probably get a job with Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan after a few months reading the require Ayn Rand stuff, with the dirty parts' pages turned down).
And on Chicago's corners, that means a free market to sell some of Chicago's most famous imports (you really think South American coca products are raised in the Dan Ryan Woods?) on designated corners. These corners are often, on the West Side and South Side at least, within four or five blocks of an expressway exit. (Ask around about why "South C" has been controlled by five-pointed assholes for three generations...). The marketplace is open almost 24/7, just like Yuppy fantasies want. And the way it works, any of Rahm's alumni buddies from Wilmette or Winnetka (or Merrilville and points south) can jump off the expressway, cop tonight's party favors, and be heading home at 70 mph within less than ten minutes. Cash business, the American Dream, and all that.
And thanks to the Illinois austerity program, which has been in place since Ronald Reagan was President, one of the other dark secrets of the Land of Lincoln is that inside the state prisons, the drug gangs, "People" (five pointed) and "Folks" (six), run things. After all, just like in "The Wire," our brothers and sisters from AFSCME are underpaid, overworked, and while not as much Rahm's "Public Enemy Number One" as unionized teachers, certainly not being given reinforcements to make sure that the descendants of Jeff Fort and David Barksdale can't run stuff no mo from all up in heah... (couldn't resist...). So now it's the early months, still the cold ones, of 2012, and The Mayor and his Merry Mercenaries have taken over all things Chicago.
Jean-Claude Brizard (a year ago, the controversial chief of the Rochester New York public schools) is the Godfather of CPS.
Garry McCarthy, of Newark (full disclosure, this reporter went to high school on what used to be called "High Street" down from City Hall in Newark; love it and the whole Jersey thing, but that's another story for another time) is running Chicago's cops.
And Jadine Chou, who learned about going through doors by watching PBS (not even HBO) and at the University of Chicago School of Business (full disclosure; this reporter got his BA from the University of Chicago in 1969 with a double major, not too relevant to this report) and awarding crony contracts for security cameras while "Portfolio Chief" at the Chicago Housing Authority is now running "security and safety" for Brizard and Rahm at CPS.
And the Wilmette Ballerina is on the Fifth Floor of Chicago's City Hall is playing "Mayor" with scripts coming in straight out of his friends in Hollywood and pirouetting from one publicity stunt to another while on the real streets of real Chicago the bad guys are getting bolder and using live ammunition, not play guns like back out West where his brother rounds up the money and the talking points. Talk about a perfect storm — or a bad joke — these four are IT.
Rahm came to town with millions of dollars and some serious scripts, the plan being to "clean up Chicago" (from what) and challenge the "status quo" (wasn't that created by 17 years of Richard M. Daley ruling the schooling) before moving on — Hooray for Hollywood! — to another gig at the White House, but this one not as an understudy.
But it don't work that way in the real world, and this bunch of guys (one gal) who couldn't find their way from the drug corners up by Gale School out to South Cs without a GPS don't get it and have done nothing but disrespect everyone who does, whether it's teachers facing the real MLDs and LKNs, cops who can tell you, if you show respect, the twenty different brands of "D" out there now, or all the men and women trying to run the libraries (Rahm's a real hero; he can do a verbal beat down on kindergarten teachers and the corner librarian; tough guy straight out of central casting...) and schools while outside, as we said, those Glocks are not toys you can get on the Internet.
Now we flash forward to the free market realities of February 2012, and the long-standing rivalry between the Latin Kings and the Maniac Latin Disciples on corners ranging from Albany Park (that's the Kezie and Montrose reference above) to Fullerton and Kedzie all the way out to the environs of Gage Park High School and beyond.
