Doing Business in Chicago - Unravelling of “The Chicago Way”

Doing business in the Windy City has its own hurdles way beyond the ABC's of business acumen. It's often about "I know a guy." As the former VP/GM, AT&T Wireless in Chicago, those hurdles often had dollar signs attached, sometimes in the form of charitable corporate donations. And PUSH often came to SHOVE, pun intended. But that's another story...

A few years ago, I wrote a short article about the city politics only meant as an exercise in creative writing and to be submitted, not for publication, but only to iCloud for the remainder of its digital life. I bumped into it the other day searching Files for another adventure. I share it here in the hopes you will enjoy it.

Unravelling of “The Chicago Way”

Chicago Politics is so delicious to watch, especially the unraveling of Democrat bosses with the recent revelations of Alderman Solis flipping and wearing a wire to take down his fellow pols.??Solis, like Salvatore "Big Pussy" Bonpensiero of the Sopranos HBO fame, is now looking over his shoulder as the marinara of betrayal heats up.?

The Dems are sky-writing their corruption these days like political chemtrails over the Chicago skyline. The texture of Chicago politics is like a 1930’s film noir.??Alderman Burke with his Burberry trench coat and fedora is right out of central casting and begs for a binge-worthy Netflix Original.??The sweaty smell of corruption is hidden within sartorial splendor.??Solis, Burke, Madigan and those yet to be exposed in City, County, and State government, run for cover and give back "donations" while they disingenuously seek to reform the unrepentant.?

The "city that works" Democrats have been working overtime, but not for its constituents. Their own crooked businesses always come first.??City work is merely an opportunity to bolt-on personal enrichment, kind of a Chicago 2 for 1 or BOGO, the?raison d'être for being in Chicago politics in the first place. Zoning approvals and permits awaiting ransom in the currency of contracted law work is the alleged Burke-Madigan sleight-of-hand, an old-school Chicago magic trick. Others pocket and enrich themselves with campaign funds, while seeking the next "golden" opportunity that Blagojevich ill-fatedly coined and Rahm said never to waste. All in a day's work in Chicago.

Meanwhile, Rahm Emanuel, called Chicago "the greatest city in America." Run by Democrats for more than eight decades, Chicago should serve as a showplace that reflects the wishful world of "progressive policies." Yet, CPS is a mess, and the city's finances at near junk level. In 2018, the city averaged 46 homicides a month, with the majority of them unsolved.

The only progress is in terms of construction projects ripe for TIF and kickbacks or photo ops for politicians who want to be known for helping the "little guy". The stuff that political cartoons are made of.?

At election time, the democrat neighborhood bosses use envelopes jammed with cash as "walking around money" to pay and then drive the under-trodden and the dead to?vote Democrat. It's always been this way. Chicago is where elections have nothing to do with delivering on promises made to the voters. Facts don’t count. It’s all about equality of outcome for the “made men” of city that works. The solution to all problems is money. It's the Chicago Way.?

Even the black crusaders in Chicago are experts at the Chicago Tao. They’ve used Wall Street intimidation to gain "donations" yet have left the southwest side's mean streets intact. Why? The down-trodden need voices and the voices need money. With all the windy city talking and marching nothing changes. The down-trodden remain on the Democrat Plantation.?

Leonard Cohen’s “Everybody Knows” seems to describe it perfectly…

"Everybody knows that the dice are loaded?

Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed

?Everybody knows that the war is over?

Everybody knows the good guys lost

?Everybody knows the fight was fixed?

The poor stay poor, the rich get rich?

That's how it goes?

Everybody knows"

While 4 out of previous 7 Illinois governors have gone to prison, how is it that some of the Illinois political kingpins stay out of jail? How can one man - Michael Madigan, be the Illinois Speaker of the House for over 12,000 days, the longest serving state speaker in US history? His daughter is Illinois Attorney General. He has honed the art of Chicago politics nearly to perfection.

It’s Chicago where zombie voters roam election night streets and find their way, lifetime after lifetime, to democrat ballots. The sun rises and sets. Nothing changes in the “city that works.”

Finally this November, 2023 ALD Ed Burke goes to trial. Former Speaker of the House, Illinois, Michael Madigan goes to trial April, 2024.