The political issues in the Chicago mayoral election
7 April 2015
A runoff election for mayor is being held today in Chicago, the third-largest city in the United States. The contest is between two Democratic Party candidates: incumbent Rahm Emanuel, a close political associate of President Obama, and Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, a long-time Democratic Party operative who is being promoted as a supposed “left” candidate.The election has national and international significance. The basic
issues facing working people in Chicago—the government-
corporate assault on jobs and living standards, the closure of schools
and decimation of public education, the rising tide of police
violence and repression—confront workers and young people across
the country. The bipartisan nature of these attacks is underscored by
the political monopoly long exercised by the Democratic Party in
Chicago.
Today’s election presents in sharp relief the bankruptcy of all political programs and perspectives that are oriented to the Democratic Party. The crisis in Chicago poses the need for the working class to break with the two parties of big business and mount an independent political struggle directed against the financial oligarchy and its profit system.
There is growing disaffection from the entire corporate-controlled political system and mounting signs of renewed class struggle. That is why elements within the political establishment and sections of the trade union bureaucracy, backed by the various fake-left organizations that orbit the Democratic Party, launched the phony “populist” campaign of Garcia. Its purpose is to head off an independent movement of the working class.
Mayor Emanuel embodies the foulest characteristics of American politics in general and the Democratic Party in particular. An operative in the Clinton administration, Emanuel made millions as an investment banker before returning to the White House as Obama’s chief of staff.
As mayor, Emanuel has pursued the same policies in Chicago as Obama on the national level. He has presided over the closure of 50 schools, attacks on the jobs and pensions of teachers and public employees, and a wave of police violence against youth and working people. The money siphoned from essential services has funded tax cuts and other subsidies for corporations and wealthy investors.
Emanuel’s failure to win 50 percent of the vote in the first round of the election, held in February, revealed the deep hostility in the working class to his right-wing policies. It was also a rebuff to Obama, who campaigned for his former aide in southside Chicago.
The Chicago Teachers Union and the Service Employees International Union have spearheaded the campaign of Garcia. It is a measure of the right-wing character of the Democratic Party that the best they could come up as the supposedly “progressive” face of the party was a longtime functionary of the Democratic machine in the city. In the final days of the campaign, Garcia has sought to capitalize on a report of rising homicides in Chicago by stepping up his denunciations of Emanuel for refusing to hire 1,000 more cops. This has been accompanied by attacks on the incumbent mayor for being fiscally irresponsible.
This has not prevented the International Socialist Organization (ISO) and other pseudo-left organizations from either directly promoting Garcia or promoting the unions that back his campaign. Like their counterparts in the Syriza government in Greece, the ISO and other middle class groups that base themselves on racial and gender politics smell the opportunity to get positions of power and influence and improve their financial situation. Their task is to spout occasional “left” phrases while helping maintain the political stranglehold of the Democratic Party on the working class.
It is impossible to halt the attack on working class living standards and rights outside of a struggle to build a political movement of the working class that is independent of the capitalist politicians and directed against the capitalist system. The Democratic and Republican politicians endlessly proclaim that there is no money to meet pressing social needs. But the ranks of multi-millionaires and billionaires continue to grow, along with the obscene levels of wealth they control. These are the paymasters of both corporate-controlled parties.
The fortunes of the Wall Street parasites and corporate CEOs must be seized and put to good use providing decent-paying jobs and building schools and affordable housing. The corporations and banks must be nationalized and turned into publicly owned and democratically controlled entities, so that the economy can be run for the benefit of the many rather than the profit of a few.
There is a massive working class in Chicago, with rich traditions of industrial and political struggle dating back to the fight for the eight-hour day in the 1880s, the Haymarket Martyrs and the first international May Day demonstrations. The mass struggles of the 1930s led to the formation of industrial unions in auto, steel, trucking, meatpacking and other industries.
These organizations, however, were subordinated by the union leadership to the Democratic Party, undercutting any possibility of a radical restructuring of social relations. Over the last four decades, the pro-capitalist unions have suppressed working class resistance to the explosive growth of social inequality.
The 2012 strike by 29,000 Chicago teachers was betrayed by the leadership of the teachers union, which includes a prominent member of the ISO. The strike was nonetheless a sign of the reemergence of open class conflict in the city. This was part of a broader trend, reflected more recently in widespread protests against police brutality and the strike by oil refinery workers.
Kristina Betinis and Patrick Martin
BARACK OBAMA and his
BANKSTER
BUDDY MAYOR RAHM EMANUEL IMPOSE
OBAMANOMICS MARSHALL LAW ON
ILLINOIS!
BUDDY MAYOR RAHM EMANUEL IMPOSE
OBAMANOMICS MARSHALL LAW ON
ILLINOIS!
Obama at the national level and Emanuel in Chicago have
carried out equivalent attacks on the social rights of working people…. AS THEY
SERVE THEIR BANKSTER CRONIES!
THE OBAMA HOAX TO LEGALIZE
MEXICO’S LOOTING… celebrated first in
Obama’s MEX DRUG CARTEL infested city of
Chicago?
MEXICO’S LOOTING… celebrated first in
Obama’s MEX DRUG CARTEL infested city of
Chicago?
Chicago Democrats are hoping to make the Windy City the model for
enrolling illegal immigrants into whatever new benefits the Obama administration
might adopt.
Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-Ill.) and Chicago Mayor Rahm
Emanuel (D) joined forces Wednesday with roughly 50 civic leaders to
launch a comprehensive strategy for signing up those immigrants who might
become newly eligible for any new benefits coming out of the administration.
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2014/08/expanding-la-raza-welfare-state-before.html
One government-organized settlement has followed another, utilizing “deferred prosecution” deals and other gimmicks to allow Wall Street CEOs to get off scot-free. All the banks have had to do is pay largely fictitious fines, much of the nominal amount written off as tax credits.
OBAMA AND HIS CHICAGO: SINKING IN A CESSPOOL
OF CORRUPTION!
THE
STAGGERING COST OF THE DEMOCRAT PARTY’S AGENDA OF BUILDING THE LA RAZA MEXICAN
WELFARE STATE on the BACKS OF AMERICA’S LOOTED MIDDLE-CLASS:
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2015/03/social-security-for-looting-illegals-13.html
“The lifetime costs of Social Security
and Medicare benefits of illegal immigrant beneficiaries of President Obama’s
executive amnesty would be well over a trillion dollars, according to Heritage
Foundation expert Robert Rector’s prepared testimony for a House panel obtained
in advance by Breitbart News.”
SOCIAL
SECURITY to VOTING ILLEGALS: The Obama – LA RAZA Conspiracy:
The new aristocrats,
like the lords of old, are not bound by the laws that apply to the lower
orders. Voluminous reports have been issued by Congress and government panels
documenting systematic fraud and law breaking carried out by the biggest banks
both before and after the Wall Street crash of 2008.
Goldman
Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and every other major US bank have been
implicated in a web of scandals, including the sale of toxic mortgage
securities on false pretenses, the rigging of international interest rates and
global foreign exchange markets, the laundering of Mexican drug money,
accounting fraud and lying to bank regulators, illegally foreclosing on the
homes of delinquent borrowers, credit card fraud, illegal debt-collection
practices, rigging of energy markets, and complicity in the Bernie Madoff Ponzi
scheme.
MUCH, MUCH MORE ON
OBAMA’S ECONOMIC CRIMES PERPETRATED ON BEHALF OF HIS CRONIES ON THE AMERICAN
MIDDLE-CLASS
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2015/04/obamanomics-assault-on-american-middle.htmlOne government-organized settlement has followed another, utilizing “deferred prosecution” deals and other gimmicks to allow Wall Street CEOs to get off scot-free. All the banks have had to do is pay largely fictitious fines, much of the nominal amount written off as tax credits.
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