Endorsements for 2011 municipal elections.

Bring this into your local polling place and give me a few more votes.

Chicago has become a kingdom or, more like one of those Caribbean kleptocracies maybe. Mayor Daley has privatized important institutions left and right that were meant for the public good. He did so with no explanation and with the consent of a city council under his political thumb. He just mumbled and stuttered to reporters as his associates one after another took the fall for him and landed themselves in prison. He learned it from his father. He proved the angry, impulsive, privileged brat Harold Washington said he would be and we pay for it in Chicago. We literally pay for it.

What an opportunity for democracy in Chicago since our benevolent dictator decided to bail out just before his numerous mistakes hit the fan. It clearly is time for change in Chicago. Chicago needs candidates with common sense, an ability to make wise decisions and lead, and someone willing to share the decision-making process with the people of Chicago and the City Council they elect. In the end, it is time to remove the bullies from city government and give government back to the people. The bullies are there with their money and muscle, and Chicago has to block them out and force run-offs to increase democracy in a town where democracy is our only solution.

For Mayor Miguel DelValle

Miguel DelValle is like Mayor Daley in only two ways. He is a veteran of city politics. He is a loyal Democrat. He is unlike Daley in every other way imaginable. He is even-tempered (unlike Braun), open (unlike Emanuel), democratic (unlike Chico), and from the people (unlike all of the above). When it all hits the fan, DelValle is the best candidate to be sitting in the driver's seat of City Hall, mostly because he will not do everything himself.

DelValle will work with the City Council instead of forcing it to do his will. He will put cops in charge of the police department, professional educators in charge of CPS, and so on. He is the only candidate running who will not sell the City of Chicago to big business and political cronies. Rahm Emanuel and Gery Chico, the front-runners are ready to do both.

Emanuel, not even legally allowed to run for the mayor's office according to a literal interpretation of state law, managed to bully the courts through the party. He is from the very banks that precipitated our current financial crisis. Most of his millions in campaign cash comes straight from those banks and from out of town. Where one's money is, one's heart is and Rahm's heart is on Wall Street.

When he is elected, in the name of balancing the budget, Rahm will sell Chicago to the highest bidder. Public schools will be closed and corporations will be invited to build new "charter schools" that foster failed corporate mentalities. Rahm has floated the idea of putting advertising on required city stickers and on garbage trucks. Daley's parking meter deal, sale of bus stops, and leasing on the Skyway will look tame compared to whatever Rahm has planned. (It is hard to know what Emanuel wants, since he avoids the press, which, for some reason fawns over him.)The idea of public trust is foreign to Emanuel and the other front-runner Gery Chico, but the public trust is a central theme of DelValle's campaign.

See http://www.delvalleformayor.com/ for DelValle's official message.

For 45th Ward Alderman John Garrido

The 45th Ward race has become a classic in local politics. Words and lawsuits, and even bullets now are flying. Ward politics is tough, gritty, and the 45th Ward has been represented by an imperially-minded bully made for such nasty games, Pat Levar, for almost two decades.

Levar barrels through his ward like a medieval baron, physically picking on his serfs and eating everything in sight. He has made a a habit of using TIF funds set aside for schools and police protection to see to it that shady massage parlors, tattoo shops, pawn shops, and abortion clinics can go up in his working class ward. He sent his kids to private schools while the neighborhood schools starved for help. He rubber stamped everything the mayor sent him in City Council. He was a failure at keeping the streets up, but a master at selling zoning ordinances.

Levar's support was waning and so he decided to get out of the race due to health reasons. This left an open seat in the City Council and sent his opponents into overdrive. Most of these opponents were active community organizers and many had an open ear to the community's needs. Two in particular, John Garrido and John Arena promised increased democracy for a ward starving for it. Fearing the loss of their gravy train, the Democratic Machine set up an obscure union worker Marina Faz-Huppert to run in the ward. Her signatures were gathered at the last minute and many were signatures that appeared on the petitions of other candidates.

Faz-Huppert, however, has voted as recently as 2009 from a residence in Riverside. Her campaign literature until the last days of the campaign were mailed from a downtown office. Her ties to Saint Cornelius Church, a cornerstone in the community, were recent and fleeting. People saw right through this and, despite her concerted efforts to "reach out", she is seen as the machine candidate. She has spent almost a quarter million dollars of party money to send vacuous mailings daily to the voters of the ward and has been an expert at plopping signs throughout the ward. She will probably be in a run-off with one of the other candidates simply because of her machine ties and machine endorsements, but she will sink fast in the final round of voting.

John Garrido, an active Chicago Policeman and lawyer, has come out ahead as the best choice for change. He was a big vote-getter in the race for Cook County president and is a steady voice for democracy and debate in the community. Garrido is no rubber stamp for the machine or mayor and has an open ear to the community.

He has lived and worked in the 45th Ward for many years and has run a grass roots campaign that managed to find great traction despite the ward's many many years of corrupt autocracy by Levar. Garrido has fought the resulting cynicism and delivered a message of hope for the future of the 45th. He would see TIF finds go where they were intended. He will make sure the community is not left to crime by reassessing the organization of the police. He has promised a transparent aldermanic office and I can personally attest that he has the integrity and humility to see this through.

If what the news says comes down and Rahm Emanuel wins in the first round, it will be even more crucial to send an independent voice like Garrido's to City Hall.

See http://johngarrido.com/ to read up on the issues and see him in action around Jefferson Park.

Madison, Tea Party? No difference.

Reflections on Madison from a lazy parasitic civics teacher.

I am a professional liar. Everyday I walk into my classes and for hours tell lies to my students. I tell them about the revolutionary vision of the founding fathers. I show them that we are a democratic republic, a country in which the will of the masses is carried out by elected representatives. I tell them the story of how democracy has expanded. I tell them that the U.S. inspired the world. I teach my students about the rights they have, rights guaranteed by the blood of thousands of people just like them. I once felt honored to be the tribune of democracy for the small handful of kids the city threw into my classroom, but more and more I feel like a vile liar.

This is a note to you, slimy politicians. This is a note to you, empty suits. This is a note to you, in Washington and Springfield and to you on Wall Street. If I am a liar, it is not because of me. If I am a liar it is because YOU made me a liar. America is not so foolish as you presume.

Don't think I haven't noticed it. You have been on my t.v. and radio trying desperately to portray teachers like me as money-grubbing, greedy, lazy pigs. According to some of you, we have destroyed the economy by sucking at the trough of the state. You tell America that we are vile creatures. We are, as the influential Rush Limbaugh said this week, "parasites." It is quite low to speak like this of such a noble profession. Few contribute more to what makes America great as much as a teacher and people are not fooled by such silly rhetoric.

Money-grubbing and greedy? Hardly. People in my line of work make less than those with similar education. Was it greedy for me to choose to spend time teaching kids? Should I have chosen the field of law or politics or banking? Maybe my mistake was that I chose a job in which I am paid for six hours of work when I probably do about ten hours a day. I should not have been so greedy. I should have gone into the derivative trade or maybe sold faulty mortgages like fine upstanding people like you, people like you who truly pull your weight. I am a burden on society, what with the homework I assign. I should have stuck to

selling mortgages to people who couldn't afford them like my banker critics or maybe I should be like my political critics and contribute to society by looking the other way as lobbyists pour money into my campaign coffers.

I am a parasite, eh? I suckk and suck and provide nothing. This is something I have seen lately in education. Many who come to guide school districts with backgrounds in business do not know what to make of us. What is the widget of a school teacher? What do we make? What do we provide? And more importantly, how can one measure what we produce, so as to apply business management strategies? They have tried to use the ACT to measure it, but, alas, there is no test on the ACT to measure how well a student knows their rights or understands the position history has put them in. Some of these managers in education have concluded throwing things like poetry and civics and music right out of the curriculum of schools since there is no way to measure its worth. It is a sad day we are approaching when everything that makes someone educated and worthwhile must have a price tag attached to it. So I guess, I contribute nothing and so, am a parasite.

The thousands protesting in Madison this week are alarmed that you have made us liars. We told our students that their government had their best in mind, and you gave us lies and more lies and kicked the can down the road. You told me I could retire after a career of training active civic-minded American voters. And then what is most appalling is the assault on the very democracy we are obliged to herald in our classrooms by banning through state law the right of people to peaceably redress their government for grievances, the right to strike and collective bargaining.

Thousands of regular people sacrificed for that right. Many even gave their lives like the workers in the Homestead Strike who picketed, but were met with bullets. Collective bargaining and the strike has become a cornerstone of American democracy and Governor Walker of Wisconsin and Rep. Michael Madigan of Illinois have proposed cutting off democracy at the knees. These politicians tell us to trust them. They ask us to give up our hard-earned rights and to trust them after they've delivered nothing but decades of lies. When the unions came to compromise with Walker so long as he did not sacrifice the rights of working men, but he refused; revealing a truly sinister motive.

Regular, hard-working everyday Americans are not fooled. We refuse to give up our American dreams to the rich and powerful and to the liars on Wall Street. We demand freedom and we demand the voice that was promised to us by our social studies teachers in our own youths. That is why there are thousands protesting in Madison and it is why the Tea Party made the dent it did in November's election. The people want control of their government. They want fairness. I am surprised at how dense the powers that be are to fail to see this.

We do not want to be talked down to. We are not chattel. We are the rulers of this nation because, unfortunately for the CEOs and big wigs, we outnumber them and our vote counts. I always voted with the idea of underwear in mind: One should change their politicians like they change their underwear. After a short while, both tend to stink.

Who are the parasites? When major corporations and banks broke the law and went against common sense to make a quick buck on the backs of everyday men and women, the government failed to stop them. It was not out of ignorance that our esteemed government did not stop it, they just hoped it would go away and a few bucks made waiting for it to go away easier. They played a game of hot potato while I told my class that they were lucky to be Americans. And then it hit the fan and the banks were "bailed out" with the tax money of hard-working America because they were "too big to fail." Well, they did fail. And so did the people who were foreclosed on. Those people were left homeless, but the banks were given a check signed by our elected representatives. Who are the parasites?

So, here it is.... here are the people in the streets you must have thought would never come. Here they are with their signs and placards, acting like "animals" by demanding their basic democratic rights. Here they are yelling and screaming at you. The Republicans defy them and the Democrats run and hide, but both tactics are foolish. Americans are finished with the games and want their democracy back. We want our jobs back from China. We want an end to all the deals. We want all that was promised to us by our parasite, lazy, do-nothing social studies teachers who reminded us of Lincoln's words that the American government is "of the people, by the people, and for the people."

So go ahead and keep calling us communists or racists because we oppose the plutocracy. We will not race to the bottom and compete with your Chinese and Indian slaves. This is the Tea Party. This is the union protest in Madison. It comes from the Left and the Right and is one and the same.

See where will your closed ears get you next time you want our votes. This is not a Democrat or Republican thing. This is an American thing and in America, majority rules.