SUBSCRIPT: The Billionaire Boys Club comes out of the closet and gets dissed! 'Karen, you go tell those mean teachers to stop picking on Bruce...'... Civic Committee's billionaire boss faces the wrath of democracy in Chicago
It's not every morning that a major "world class" city gets to hear one of those shadowy Plutocrats who used to run things by remote control (read, based on millions of dollars) remind the world how brittle the SuperRich are, but on October 2, 2012, Chicagoans who were paying attention awakened to learn that on of the city's Billionaire Boys Club members, Bruce Rauner, was being picked on by someone from the evil Teachers Union.
Chicago billionaire Bruce Rauner (above at the George W. Bush Institute in September 2012) has announced in two Chicago Tribune Op Eds that the Chicago Plutocracy needs to declare "war" on the union bosses in the Chicago Teachers Union. Rauner's plan is to play Good Teacher/Bad Teacher on the grand scale to separate the really really good Chicago teachers from the evil union bosses. During the seven day Chicago Teachers Strike of 2012, Rauner could have walked downstairs from his offices at 21 S. Clark St, and asked as many teachers as he wanted to join him in his quest to end union bossism. On September 10, 2012 (see photo below) between 10,000 and 50,000 teachers and their supporters were marching down Clark St. literally under the windows of the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago. Rauner is currently the chairman of that entity's "Education Committee." Recently, Rauner and his ilk have been complaining about reality not working their way. Instead of working through the usual surrogates, like the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune and most of the Trib's reporters, the CEOs are complaining directly in the Op Ed pages of the Chicago Tribune — and at meetings across the country. After more than 20 years of carefully cultivating the bizarre cult of the CEO, the CEOs have been challenged and proved to be the proverbial Emperors without Clothes. And instead of being ashamed of their revelations, they have decided to insist that their subject bow down in submission to them again, even after every new scandal — from the financial collapse of 2008 through the recent revelations about the self-serving tax dodges cultivated by their boy Mitt Romney — shows that they have always been a bit simplistic in their values and simple-minded in their articulations. Throughout history, in every culture, Greed is not God — except during the rare times like recently in the USA when a bunch of those who worship at the Altar of Greed gain brief hegemony over not only power but thought and belief itself.
For the first time in his career, Chicago billionaire Bruce Rauner has been a busy man in public. He now compulsively is railing against the CTU, both at meeting of his ilk and in print among his friends at the Chicago Tribune. According to a September 19, 2012 Tribune story, "Speaking at a panel moderated by Margaret Spellings, the former U.S. education secretary in the most recent Bush administration, Rauner questioned why a teacher who is 'a talented example of the profession would want to join the CTU or find themselves stuck there without recognition. 'You've got to break apart the union bosses away from the really talented teachers,' he said. 'That's doable. It's not easy, but that's doable and critical to improving the schools long-term.'"
For reasons the Tribune's reporters and other Rauner sycophants haven't asked, Rauner didn't bother to step outside the Civic Committee's Loop offices during the second week of September 2012 and ask a few teachers why they were wearing union tee shirts and protesting against the policies he was pushing. On September 10, to take just one day, there were more than 10,000 teachers outside the Civic Committee's offices marching down Clark St., and Rauner could have learned a little from any one of them.
But he didn't try, because Rauner and his ilk have been manipulating education policy in Chicago from behind the scenes for decades, and the reason for Rauner's Rage is that he and his buddies have been forced to come out of the closet and reveal their real stuff to the rest of the world. One of the most interesting Rauner appearances came during the strike, when the billionaire appeared on Channel 11's Chicago Tonight show with CTU vice president Jesse Sharkey.
A few weeks ago, Rauner declared "war" (as in class war) on the Chicago Teachers Union, vowing to divide the city's good teachers from the evil union bosses who had tricked 26,000 of us into going on strike, staging several enormous rallies downtown, and demanding that the sham and lies of corporate "school reform" be ended. According to Rauner's version of reality, the good teachers just want to teach, and not strike, and it's only became of the evil union bosses that all that fuss and all those red tee shirts became iconic of Chicago in September 2012.
Then, on October 2, 2012, as teachers across the city were lining up to vote democratically on a proposed contract they had won through their first strike in a quarter century, Rauner was back in the Tribune, this time to...
Whine about how he's being picked on....
Rauner writes in October 2012 that he is now the chairman of the education committee of the "Civic Committee of the Commercial Club" of Chicago. Unlike mere teachers, who can join the Chicago Teachers Union if they teach in a real Chicago public school but can't join the CTU if they teach in Chicago charter schools. This is thanks to guys like Rauner, who preaches "choice" but never actually practices it. Charter school teachers in Illinois can join any union they want — as long as that union is not the Chicago Teachers Union.
These guys get into the "Civic Committee" by becoming the Chief Executive Officers of Fortune 500 corporations based in Chicago (or by being the loyal mouthpieces of such, via the universities of the city or the city's largest and most lucrative law firms). Everyone else is told to sit down and shut up.
So the average teacher, student or parents can apply for membership in the "Civic Committee" — as long as you are a multi-millionaire or billionaire, CEO of a major corporation (or Mayor of Chicago; head of a major law firm; or heading up one of a handful of universities that will be providing the scholarly apologetics for the rule of the COEs).
Otherwise, there is a sign on the door, in almost invisible ink, that reads "Peasants and Proles KEEP OUT!"
And just to keep an eye on the schools, the Civic Committee has its offices at 21 S. Clark St., a block north of CPS headquarters at 125 S. Clark St. (In fact, the rulers of Chicago forced CPS to move from its old location at 1819 W. Pershing Road 15 years ago, in the process helping out a Civic Committee buddy, Commonwealth Edison, which needed to unload an old Loop building on someone gullible enough to buy it at a premium price...).
Once you are a member of the "Civic Committee" you get to force your policies on the rest of us, usually from behind the scenes.
But readers don't have to take Substance's word for it.
Let's start with a "Who's Who?" of the Chicago Oligarchy. The members of the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago.
Below is a list of the officers and members of the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club as of October 2, 2012. That was the day Bruce Rauner repeated his declaration of war against the city's real public school teachers:
OFFICERS: Chairman, W. JAMES FARRELL (Retired Chairman & CEO, Illinois Tool Works, Inc.*)
Vice Chairman, MILES D. WHITE (Chairman & CEO, Abbott)
President, TYRONE C. FAHNER (President, Civic Committee of The Commercial Club of Chicago)
MEMBERS:
GARY D. AHLQUIST (Senior Vice President and Managing Partner, Booz & Company)
JOHN P. AMBOIAN (Chief Executive Officer - Nuveen Investments, Inc.)
THOMAS L. BERNARDIN (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer - Leo Burnett Worldwide)
NORMAN R. BOBINS (Retired Chairman, LaSalle Bank Corporation*)
WILLIAM J. BRODSKY (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer - Chicago Board Options Exchange)
GREG Q. BROWN (Chairman & Chief Executive Officer - Motorola Solutions)
JOHN A. BUCK (Chairman & Chief Executive Officer - The John Buck Company)
JOHN A. CANNING, JR. (Chairman - Madison Dearborn Partners, LLC)
PATRICK J. CANNING (Managing Partner - KPMG LLP)
GREGORY C. CASE (President and Chief Executive Officer - Aon Corporation)
THOMAS A. COLE (Chairman, Executive Committee - Sidley Austin LLP)
ELLEN COSTELLO (CEO and US Countryhead - BMO Financial Corp.)
CHRISTOPHER M. CRANE (President and Chief Executive Officer - Exelon Corporation)
JAMES S. CROWN (President - Henry Crown and Company)
LESTER CROWN (Chairman - CC Industries, Inc.)
STEPHEN A. CRUISE (Managing Director and Co-Head Chicago Office and Midwest Region - UBS Investment Bank)
DEBORAH L. DEHAAS (Vice Chairman and Central Region Managing Partner and Chief Inclusion Officer- Deloitte LLP)
MARY N. DILLON (President and Chief Executive Officer - U.S. Cellular)
WILLIAM J. DOYLE (President and Chief Executive Officer - PotashCorp)
CRAIG J. DUCHOSSOIS (Chief Executive Officer - The Duchossois Group, Inc.)
ROBERT A. EASTER (President - University of Illinois)
JOHN A. EDWARDSON (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer - CDW LLC)
HON. RAHM EMANUEL* (Mayor - City of Chicago)
JOHN R. ETTELSON (President and Chief Executive Officer - William Blair & Company)
CHARLES L. EVANS (President and Chief Executive Officer - Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago)
THOMAS P. FITZGERALD (Managing Partner - Winston & Strawn LLP)
MICHAEL T. FOLEY (Chief Executive Officer, Zurich North America Commercial and Regional Chairman of the Americas)
MATTHEW R. GIBSON (Partner, Head of Investment Banking, Midwest Region - Goldman, Sachs & Co.)
SUE L. GIN (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer - Flying Food Group, LLC)
JAMES T. GLERUM, JR. (Managing Director and Chairman, Regional Banking for North America - Citigroup, Corporate and Investment Banking)
RICHARD C. GODFREY (Partner - Kirkland & Ellis LLP)
ILENE S. GORDON (Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer - Ingredion)
JOSEPH A. GREGOIRE (State Chairman for Illinois Banking - PNC Bank)
KENNETH C. GRIFFIN (Founder and Chief Executive Officer - Citadel, LLC.)
PATRICIA HEMINGWAY HALL (President and Chief Executive Officer - Health Care Service Corporation)
JAY L. HENDERSON (Vice Chairman, Client Service - PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP)
THOMAS W. HORTON (President and Chief Executive Officer - AMR Corporation / American Airlines, Inc.)
TONY W. HUNTER (Chief Executive Officer - Tribune Publishing Company)
LESTER B. KNIGHT III (Founding Partner - RoundTable Healthcare Partners)
FRED A. KREHBIEL (Co-Chairman - Molex Incorporated)
MATTHEW KRENTZ (Senior Partner and Managing Director - The Boston Consulting Group, Inc.)
PAUL V. LA SCHIAZZA (President - AT&T Illinois)
EDWARD M. LIDDY (Retired Chairman and Chief Executive Officer - The Allstate Corporation*)
DONALD G. LUBIN (Partner, Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP*)
JOHN W. MADIGAN (Retired Chairman and Chief Executive Officer - Tribune Company*)
TIMOTHY P. MALONEY (Illinois President - Bank of America)
R. EDEN MARTIN (Former President, Civic Committee*)
LESTER H. MCKEEVER, JR. (Managing Principal - Washington, Pittman & McKeever, LLC)
ANDREW J. MCKENNA (Chairman - Schwarz Supply Source; Chairman - McDonald's Corporation
W. JAMES MCNERNEY, JR. (Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer - The Boeing Company)
JAMES S. METCALF (President and Chief Executive Officer - USG Corporation)
DAVID W. NELMS
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer - Discover Financial Services
WILLIAM A. OSBORN
Retired Chairman & Chief Executive Officer - Northern Trust Corporation*
ROBERT L. PARKINSON, JR
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer - Baxter International Inc.
SHEILA PENROSE
Chairman - Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.
DONALD S. PERKINS
Retired Chairman - Jewel Companies, Inc.*
P. CODY PHIPPS
President and Chief Executive Officer - United Stationers
PENNY PRITZKER
Chairman - PSP Capital
THOMAS J. PRITZKER
Chairman - Hyatt Hotels Corporation
FRANK S. PTAK
President and Chief Executive Officer - The Marmon Group, LLC
BRUCE V. RAUNER
Chairman - GTCR, LLC
ELIZABETH W. REESE
President - Nicor Gas, an AGL Resources Company
J. CHRISTOPHER REYES
Chairman - Reyes Holdings, LLC
JOHN W. ROGERS, JR.
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer - Ariel Investments, LLC
IRENE B. ROSENFELD
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer - Kraft Foods Inc.
JOHN W. ROWE
Chairman Emeritus - Exelon Corporation
JAMES T. RYAN
Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer - W. W. Grainger, Inc.
PATRICK G. RYAN
Chairman Ryan Specialty Group
MICHAEL J. SACKS
Chief Executive Officer - Grosvenor Capital Management, L.P.
JOHN F. SANDNER
Retired Chairman of the Board, Member of the Executive Committee - CME Group
MORTON O. SCHAPIRO
President - Northwestern University
CHARLES A. SCHROCK
Chairman, President and CEO - Integrys Energy Group, Inc.
MICHAEL D. SCIMO
Managing Director, Chicago Office - Accenture
GORDON I. SEGAL
Chairman - Crate & Barrel
JEFFERY A. SMISEK
President & Chief Executive Officer - United Continental Holdings, Inc.
DAVID B. SPEER
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer - ITW
HARRISON I. STEANS
Chairman of the Executive Committee - Financial Investments Corporation
RICHARD K. SYKES
Managing Partner, Midwest Office, McKinsey & Company, Inc.
RICHARD L. THOMAS
Retired Chairman - First Chicago NBD Corporation*
DON THOMPSON
President and Chief Executive Officer - McDonald's Corporation
GLENN TILTON
Chairman of the Midwest Region - JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Chairman of the Board - United Continental Holdings, Inc.
MICHAEL J. TOWER
Partner - A.T. Kearney. Inc.
FREDERICK H. WADDELL
Chairman & CEO - Northern Trust Corporation
GREGORY D. WASSON
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer - Walgreen Co.
DAVID B. WEINBERG
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer - Judd Enterprises, Inc.
THOMAS J. WILSON
Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer -The Allstate Corporation
W. ROCKWELL WIRTZ
President - Wirtz Corporation
ROBERT J. ZIMMER
President - University of Chicago
