"The plan was simple: wreak as much havoc as possibly by blocking every single thing..." [View all]

[Pirate Smile]

Before It's Too Late

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On this 30th anniversary of his inauguration as the first black man ever to be elected to the Big Chair on the 5th floor of Chicago' City Hall, lots of people are retrospecting thoughtfully on the legacy of Harold Washington this week, but surprisingly few of them are devoting any ink at all to what I consider to be the two most divisive and, ultimately, educational reactions to his campaign and his first term.
First, the massive, racist backlash by ethnic whites: people who had been taught to vote straight Daley Party ticket since they were at their sainted mother's breast and who fled the Party overnight to vote en masse for the Republican candidate, Bernie Epton:

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And, second, the brutal, obstructionist campaign carried out against him by his opponents after he won fair and square.
Harold terrified Chicago's ethnic white rank-and-file voters because he was black. Period. And Harold terrified the white power structure because he was black and because he came to power on the strength of his coalition-building and on a platform that promised to attack the widespread institutional corruption that fueled much of Chicago government, and to more fairly distribute government services.

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The plan was simple: wreak as much havoc as possibly by blocking every single thing the duly elected mayor proposed while incessantly inflaming the paranoia and rage of their base. Force Harold to sustain basic city operations by executive order...and then attack him for being a dictator. Make the city ungovernable on purpose...and then try to hold Harold responsible for the poison fruits of their deliberate sabotage:

After the election of Harold Washington, the first black mayor of Chicago, in 1983, a group of 29 of the city's 50 aldermen led by "the Eddies"—Ed Vrdolyak and Ed Burke—fought the mayor at every turn. The block of 29, known as the Vrdolyak 29, consisted of 28 white councilmen and the body's only Hispanic member.
The Vrdolyak 29 would not only block the mayor's proposals, but would even block his appointments, a purely symbolic move as they were able to take places running city departments on an interim basis anyway. In their first session under the Washington administration, they voted themselves in charge of every single council committee. Some members even admitted that they blocked the mayor's proposals when they thought they had merit, because they claimed a good measure by Washington would be bad in the long run for the city because it would help prolong his mayorship.
Many believe the opposition was racially motivated. There certainly was grounds for believing that as the 1983 mayoral election which Washington won gained national headlines for its ugly and racially divisive nature.

The Vrdolyak 29 had a majority of votes, but not enough to override a mayoral veto, thus creating legislative gridlock. Chicago became known as "Beirut by the Lake."
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If this sounds remarkably familiar it is because, 30 years later, this is exactly the same strategy the GOP has been using for the last five years in an attempt to fatally wound the Obama Administration:


http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2013/05/before-its-too-late.html