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It takes a village huh? A village of idiots that elect money grubbing SOBs that use their connections to fatten themselves and their pals.
What steps have YOU taken to reverse the slide that you've seen over these past 30 years?
I have gone to countless dozens of my local school board meetings, sat alone in the audience for Park District meetings, figured out ways for my local town to literally save hundreds of thousands of dollars on new water plant infrastructure. I am involved!
When my kids were little and I was racing around to half a dozen sports and clubs I still managed to sit through those interminable budget meetings. In doing so I learned where the money was being spent and together with my neighbors I made sure that the schools got rebuilt, the parks got expanded and the town roads look better now than ever.
I also managed to work a full-time job and run a side business. I did not have much time for hanging out and drinking low budget beers to pretend I was some kind of PBR swilling hipster with a handle on global politics...
I ain't so stuck on the junk the nightly news pumps out to think that we are all doomed.
I know that if something is gonna change it is gonna take people to get off their rumps and make those changes. When it comes to schools I routinely tell folks that have enough lead time that even in CPS they can learn the ropes and at least get their kid into a solid program. Forest Claypool did a lot to help Daley clean out the Park District loafers. The City Council is largely a cess pool of "speachifying" poseurs that know all the right buttons to push to stsay firmly in power, unless of course the "hog with the big nuts" decides to switch over to the County Board or Springfield where they see even more money ripe for the picking...
Here is how I see the lines -- on one side there are those so totally snowed by the crap that is pumped at 'em that like some kind of Stockholm Syndrome they identify with their "captors" and blame forces beyond their control for their own inaction. They are so completely mesmerized by the hypnotic nonsense of "income inequality" that they do not pay attention to these same politicians lining their pockets..
On the other side their people who see things as they are and demand that laws be followed and justice prevail, they are realistic about the past and at least optimistic that with enough education and simple involvement change is possible.
Take your passion and use some of it to learn how politicians in Illinois have been systemically fleecing the worst off, get behind candidates that won't just sing a song of the downtrodden but have record of actually following the laws and not breaking 'em...
It takes a village huh? A village of idiots that elect money grubbing SOBs that use their connections to fatten themselves and their pals.
What steps have YOU taken to reverse the slide that you've seen over these past 30 years?
I have gone to countless dozens of my local school board meetings, sat alone in the audience for Park District meetings, figured out ways for my local town to literally save hundreds of thousands of dollars on new water plant infrastructure. I am involved!
When my kids were little and I was racing around to half a dozen sports and clubs I still managed to sit through those interminable budget meetings. In doing so I learned where the money was being spent and together with my neighbors I made sure that the schools got rebuilt, the parks got expanded and the town roads look better now than ever.
I also managed to work a full-time job and run a side business. I did not have much time for hanging out and drinking low budget beers to pretend I was some kind of PBR swilling hipster with a handle on global politics...
I ain't so stuck on the junk the nightly news pumps out to think that we are all doomed.
I know that if something is gonna change it is gonna take people to get off their rumps and make those changes. When it comes to schools I routinely tell folks that have enough lead time that even in CPS they can learn the ropes and at least get their kid into a solid program. Forest Claypool did a lot to help Daley clean out the Park District loafers. The City Council is largely a cess pool of "speachifying" poseurs that know all the right buttons to push to stsay firmly in power, unless of course the "hog with the big nuts" decides to switch over to the County Board or Springfield where they see even more money ripe for the picking...
Here is how I see the lines -- on one side there are those so totally snowed by the crap that is pumped at 'em that like some kind of Stockholm Syndrome they identify with their "captors" and blame forces beyond their control for their own inaction. They are so completely mesmerized by the hypnotic nonsense of "income inequality" that they do not pay attention to these same politicians lining their pockets..
On the other side their people who see things as they are and demand that laws be followed and justice prevail, they are realistic about the past and at least optimistic that with enough education and simple involvement change is possible.
Take your passion and use some of it to learn how politicians in Illinois have been systemically fleecing the worst off, get behind candidates that won't just sing a song of the downtrodden but have record of actually following the laws and not breaking 'em...
chet, you are absolutely beautiful when you get angry. you're an absolutely cutie when you get your dander up.
Quote:
It takes a village huh? A village of idiots that elect money grubbing SOBs that use their connections to fatten themselves and their pals.
What steps have YOU taken to reverse the slide that you've seen over these past 30 years?
gee whiz, chetster. i never questioned that you might have taken action. It never entered my mind. I never thought of the "steps I took" were part of the conversation. I've done my share, but never thought it was necessary to talk about it.
Quote:
It takes a village huh?
yes, chet, it does. you might not agree with that. you might not believe it. but it does. if we don't form of a community, we have nothing. no man is an island; we are dependent on each other. i know you don't get it, chet and you never will.
Quote:
I did not have much time for hanging out and drinking low budget beers to pretend I was some kind of PBR swilling hipster with a handle on global politics...
never was a beer drinker or hung out doing so. may i assume that my words would have qualified me automatically as " a hanging out drinker of low budget beer"?
Why is it you feel a need to tout your own accomplishments and give yourself a pat on the back? I'm on an internet forum here. What do I care about what people know about my accomlishments? All that matters is the words I share and whether or not they carry weight no matter who says them. Why the ego, chet? What does it matter if you think I'm complete jerk; you wouldn't be the first to think so.
Quote:
When my kids were little and I was racing around to half a dozen sports and clubs I still managed to sit through those interminable budget meetings.
tragically.....very tragically because I've been a teacher all my life....your kids are being screwed. Their future is very shaky. Global climate change is real, happening now, and destroying quality of life now, resources are being used up, global population growing at cancerous rates, and the corporate world exasperating the problems with fossil fuels and all their other assaults on the planet.
sorry, chet; it's real. deny it all you want. but it is real. the documentation is so overwhelming that it is no longer debatable. Like the concept the earth revolves around the sun and the earth is round, the evidence is all there.
I feel every bit as bad about your kids' future as you do; and mine, too. all the others, as well.
Did I ever say that local and state government in Chicago and Illinois was unimportant?
not once. i defy you a place where i said that. Of course I think corruption is wrong, on any level. my only points were:
1. we have no evidence that Chicago and Illinois aren't typical of other cities and states (you know, that documentation thing)
2. given the state of the nation, local and state corrution hardly register because the system is so bad.
People focus on different things, chet. You focus on local government because it is your interest and I say that is a good thing. Others find other causes to deal with. Nobody can or will do it all.
we all make our own assessments. I am an extensive and eclectic reader; I soak it all up. I've read so much, been so considered about documentation, and I have no doubt that we as nation and world are heading for a real fall.
It all boils down to sustainability. We use the planet as if it were an ATM machine, without a clue of the magic of nature, its interconnectability, our part in it. What we are doing to this planet, the only home we have, makes Chgo and IL politics and government almost meaningless. Again...just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Capitalism has gotten to a predatory, world dominating institution, competition free and in bed with government, streamrolling to do whatever it wants to make profits, planet and people and all the other species on the planet be damned.
It's all there, chet; highly detailed, well cited, fact by fact. You just have to pursue.
Your concerns over Chgo and IL politics seem miniscule to me after I've just come from reading how our fast food industry has set up endless cities around the world, destorying endless acres of rain forest, altering the enviroment, creating desertfication. Page after page of detail.
That's our world, chet. It is an inconvenient truth, like the kind that Al Gore you revile shares with us. You can't make it go away by ignoring it and saying it isn't real.
Your kids' future Chicago will be so berift of products that there will be very little those corrupt folks in government will be able to get out of it.
all interconnected, chet; whether you like it or not.
It takes a village huh? A village of idiots that elect money grubbing SOBs that use their connections to fatten themselves and their pals.
What steps have YOU taken to reverse the slide that you've seen over these past 30 years?
I have gone to countless dozens of my local school board meetings, sat alone in the audience for Park District meetings, figured out ways for my local town to literally save hundreds of thousands of dollars on new water plant infrastructure. I am involved!
When my kids were little and I was racing around to half a dozen sports and clubs I still managed to sit through those interminable budget meetings. In doing so I learned where the money was being spent and together with my neighbors I made sure that the schools got rebuilt, the parks got expanded and the town roads look better now than ever.
I also managed to work a full-time job and run a side business. I did not have much time for hanging out and drinking low budget beers to pretend I was some kind of PBR swilling hipster with a handle on global politics...
I ain't so stuck on the junk the nightly news pumps out to think that we are all doomed.
I know that if something is gonna change it is gonna take people to get off their rumps and make those changes. When it comes to schools I routinely tell folks that have enough lead time that even in CPS they can learn the ropes and at least get their kid into a solid program. Forest Claypool did a lot to help Daley clean out the Park District loafers. The City Council is largely a cess pool of "speachifying" poseurs that know all the right buttons to push to stsay firmly in power, unless of course the "hog with the big nuts" decides to switch over to the County Board or Springfield where they see even more money ripe for the picking...
Here is how I see the lines -- on one side there are those so totally snowed by the crap that is pumped at 'em that like some kind of Stockholm Syndrome they identify with their "captors" and blame forces beyond their control for their own inaction. They are so completely mesmerized by the hypnotic nonsense of "income inequality" that they do not pay attention to these same politicians lining their pockets..
On the other side their people who see things as they are and demand that laws be followed and justice prevail, they are realistic about the past and at least optimistic that with enough education and simple involvement change is possible.
Take your passion and use some of it to learn how politicians in Illinois have been systemically fleecing the worst off, get behind candidates that won't just sing a song of the downtrodden but have record of actually following the laws and not breaking 'em...
chet, you are absolutely beautiful when you get angry. you're an absolutely cutie when you get your dander up.
Quote:
It takes a village huh? A village of idiots that elect money grubbing SOBs that use their connections to fatten themselves and their pals.
What steps have YOU taken to reverse the slide that you've seen over these past 30 years?
gee whiz, chetster. i never questioned that you might have taken action. It never entered my mind. I never thought of the "steps I took" were part of the conversation. I've done my share, but never thought it was necessary to talk about it.
Quote:
It takes a village huh?
yes, chet, it does. you might not agree with that. you might not believe it. but it does. if we don't form of a community, we have nothing. no man is an island; we are dependent on each other. i know you don't get it, chet and you never will.
Quote:
I did not have much time for hanging out and drinking low budget beers to pretend I was some kind of PBR swilling hipster with a handle on global politics...
never was a beer drinker or hung out doing so. may i assume that my words would have qualified me automatically as " a hanging out drinker of low budget beer"?
Why is it you feel a need to tout your own accomplishments and give yourself a pat on the back? I'm on an internet forum here. What do I care about what people know about my accomlishments? All that matters is the words I share and whether or not they carry weight no matter who says them. Why the ego, chet? What does it matter if you think I'm complete jerk; you wouldn't be the first to think so.
Quote:
When my kids were little and I was racing around to half a dozen sports and clubs I still managed to sit through those interminable budget meetings.
tragically.....very tragically because I've been a teacher all my life....your kids are being screwed. Their future is very shaky. Global climate change is real, happening now, and destroying quality of life now, resources are being used up, global population growing at cancerous rates, and the corporate world exasperating the problems with fossil fuels and all their other assaults on the planet.
sorry, chet; it's real. deny it all you want. but it is real. the documentation is so overwhelming that it is no longer debatable. Like the concept the earth revolves around the sun and the earth is round, the evidence is all there.
I feel every bit as bad about your kids' future as you do; and mine, too. all the others, as well.
it's not a matter of boogy men, no villains, although villains are there. we all have become addicted to the consumer cornicopia, raised and grown on it, immune to the history of the planet when people had to sustain to survive (and often didn't; that's why all the so called "great civilizaitons" died out). today we differ only in the level of our technology.....destruction is massive and there is no place left to run; we have a world culture right now, totally interconnected, and there are no safe spots untouched by what we do anymore. This time, when we go down, we don't do so as a nation or a group, but as a species.
Did I ever say that local and state government in Chicago and Illinois was unimportant?
not once. i defy you a place where i said that. Of course I think corruption is wrong, on any level. my only points were:
1. we have no evidence that Chicago and Illinois aren't typical of other cities and states (you know, that documentation thing)
2. given the state of the nation, local and state corrution hardly register because the system is so bad.
People focus on different things, chet. You focus on local government because it is your interest and I say that is a good thing. Others find other causes to deal with. Nobody can or will do it all.
we all make our own assessments. I am an extensive and eclectic reader; I soak it all up. I've read so much, been so considered about documentation, and I have no doubt that we as nation and world are heading for a real fall.
It all boils down to sustainability. We use the planet as if it were an ATM machine, without a clue of the magic of nature, its interconnectability, our part in it. What we are doing to this planet, the only home we have, makes Chgo and IL politics and government almost meaningless. Again...just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Capitalism has gotten to a predatory, world dominating institution, competition free and in bed with government, streamrolling to do whatever it wants to make profits, planet and people and all the other species on the planet be damned.
It's all there, chet; highly detailed, well cited, fact by fact. You just have to pursue.
Your concerns over Chgo and IL politics seem miniscule to me after I've just come from reading how our fast food industry has set up endless cities around the world, destorying endless acres of rain forest, altering the enviroment, creating desertfication. Page after page of detail.
That's our world, chet. It is an inconvenient truth, like the kind that Al Gore you revile shares with us. You can't make it go away by ignoring it and saying it isn't real.
Your kids' future Chicago will be so berift of products that there will be very little those corrupt folks in government will be able to get out of it.
all interconnected, chet; whether you like it or not.
This "discussion" has devolved into pointless, boring sniping. Whatever salient points either party has are lost in a murk of snark and condescension.
edsg25, if you want to have an actual conversation about something, I'd suggest not talking down to people. You are probably not the smartest person in the world, and talking to people as if you think you are just makes you look like a pompous ass. Your passion is to be commended, but your message is lost in your delivery.
Also, as someone has mentioned before; Brevity, dude. Brevity.
This "discussion" has devolved into pointless, boring sniping. Whatever salient points either party has are lost in a murk of snark and condescension.
edsg25, if you want to have an actual conversation about something, I'd suggest not talking down to people. You are probably not the smartest person in the world, and talking to people as if you think you are just makes you look like a pompous ass. Your passion is to be commended, but your message is lost in your delivery.
Also, as someone has mentioned before; Brevity, dude. Brevity.
Seconded, and I'm someone who shares a lot of edsg25's core beliefs.
Stop pretending that these problems are not due to our own problems!
chet, didn't you read the responses from the other posters (who frankly are correct and have it all over us as the two poster boys of men-behaving-badly on this thread; seriously they do)? get with the program. the battle is over. you and I shook hands, hugged, accepted (and embraced) each other as Facebook friends, and had our kumbaia movement. then we smoked some weed.
you may be hungover so you didn't realize we agreed to go to Arlington (not the racetrack in The Land Beyond O'Hare; the one on the Potomac) to start the Occupy The Pentagon movement. Don't worry about being pepper sprayed: these guys use water boarding.
Peace, buddy; we'll wear our "Make love, not war" psychodelic Haight Ashbury style t-shirts as we go off to the protests. Didn't you realize that as this thread ends, you and I are part of the great catharsis and BBF's?''
And to prove it, I will avow that I am now firmly in your camp, extolling the truth of:
Chicago is more corrupt than Sodom
Illinois is more corrupt than Gammorah
Think about it, Chet! You and I, the two amigos, the Don Quixotes of the 21st century, taking back America single handedly, fighting the good fight. When you and I are through and the redistribution completed, every homeless street bum in Chicago will have the same wealth as a Koch Brother. This is exciting!!!!!
bye for now, chet; it's over for now but we will always have Paris. and Zuccotti Park. besides, there will be other, future City-Data threads for you and me to conquer
I cannot abide but the lunacy with which this thread was started, look in today's Sunday Trib for yet another article of why Illinois is worse off than other states. Front page article goes on for a whole page of how, exactly, a superintendent whose large district in the NW burbs (where are unfortunately large humber of homeowners probably assumes schools were fine..) has been hugely negatively impacted by the "EAD" that geniuses from Sears are trying to extend.
The madness of "one off" legislation that tries to pit schools against companies looking to extend tax breaks / play other desperate states off one another.
Increases taxes all you want on even leveraged buy out guys like Eddie Lampert but that won't change the sort of hijinks that companies feel they have to pull to escape Illinos' unfair taxes.
While you are looking the Trib also check out their editorial detailing the abuses that insiders have pulled to get undeserved pensions out of the teachers union. The leaders of these unions are IN ON THE SCAM -- spend literally ONE DAY as sub and never contribute to the system and get signed up benefits that others have paid into for decades!
Undo these kinds of abuses and maybe there is something to sing kumbaya to ...
I cannot abide but the lunacy with which this thread was started,
chet, chet, chet, chet, chet...
what can i tell you? my fellow forumers told me that this thread was going on too long and i was getting too charged up, too long winded, and too self-righteous upon.
guess what? they're right. and i appreciated the constructive criticism; i never shrug off an opportunity for growth.
they said "cool"; i cooled; and I'm happier for it.
so as much as wish this thread to die a much deserved death, you seem to want to keep it going and throw out the repeated cunnard of "the lunacy with which this thread was started" (the lunacy? that lunatic be me).
Now I can live with being called a lunatic, have been one on many,many an occasion.
Only problem is: I'm not spewing the lunacy you thought.
You missed the point of my original post, chet:
that point? that the Chicago subforum has been inundated with every negative thread about our beloved Windy City imaginable. My question then, based on the endless stream of idiotically questioned threads was to ask which American city did people think was doing well in this era of American deep, regressive American decline. Cities with glass buildings shouldn't cast the first stone; and all American cities have glass buildings and a plague on all their houses, compliments of Uncle Sam.
Now, chet, I understand you don't agree with me about the US; that's cool. you don't have to; it's my assessment, not yours. But my contention had nothing to do with whether or not we had good city (and state) government, how that government stacked up to other cities (and states) but strictly this:
in a nation with so many problems, many of which have been generated by the greed of our corporations and our rich and the government they have come to acquire, a government no longer a democracy, all cities and states are basket cases; none is doing well. and the real competition....beyond our borders...is cleaning our clock.
American cities are all on the listing American life boat, and it has a huge leak.
Again, chet, you don't have to accept my US assessment; that's mine.
All you have to realize is that I never built this thread around the concept of corruption in our city or state (the thought never ended my mine).
I hope this clarifies things, chet. your biggest issue wasn't even on my radar screen. I not only never brought up corruption in city or state, but I'm totally against it.
now. please? pretty please? pretty please with sugar?can we pull the plug on this endless train wreck? I don't know about you but I've said all I could here.
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