Truth Decay

I only wish the most detestable thing I ever had to do for a job was get a shot. Or share my vaccination status. Or get tested for COVID twice a week.

Apparently it is for Chicago police officers and many of the city's municipal employees. Even with their lavish pensions and hearty salaries, they are outraged by Mayor Lightfoot's COVID vaccine mandate and have filed suit against the city.

Gulp.

I had to take all manner of shit while employed as a cashier for Home Depot during the Great Recession. While the lowest-paid employees in the store, the position also featured its most-demanding metrics. They were a circular firing squad of contradictory and mutually-exclusive demands.

For instance, the 'Security' metric required me to root through a contractor's flatbed cart to search for saw blades and silver solder hidden between bags of cement mix and boxes of shingles while simultaneously delighting them with radiant customer service.

Oh, and this needed to be done very quickly. Because beyond meeting the 'Friendly and courteous' metric I needed to fulfill the 'Speed of checkout' one, too. Since they were already put-off by the assumption of theft we certainly didn't want them hanging around any longer than necessary, did we?

“Thank you for shopping at Home Depot and have a great day!”

One example of the surly gentlemen who frequented our store were the pair who commented “Wish I could stand around with my hands in my pockets all day” as they passed my register.

First off, my hands weren't in my pockets. And secondly, store policy required me to stand at the head of the aisle when I wasn't actively processing a customer and could theoretically flag down anyone ready to check-out.

As an inveterate customer service professional and an endlessly helpful soul, I couldn't let this customer's wish go unfulfilled. Which is why I responded “You can! At Home Depot dot com slash jobs!”

My insouciance wasn't taken in the spirit in which it was offered and the toxic twins leveled a complaint about me to persons unknown. Not only did I hear from my department manager but the store manager as well.

After listening to their spiels about the importance of our customers, I told them I didn't care who the complainants were—I wasn't going to be a punching bag for our customers merely because I had a Home Depot apron on.

Mystifyingly, I neglected to thank them for their support.

The memory smolders, still.

You'll excuse me if I can't quite recall the details of my pension and other benefits because there weren't any. I did mention I earned $8.40 an hour, right? And that my hours were strictly limited to spare Home Depot the ruinous financials presented by full-time employees?

Yeah.

But at least I wasn't required to get a shot.

So yes, my heart bleeds for Chicago's cops and the scores of municipal employees being made to bear the outrage of having to inoculate oneself during a pandemic. It's like being made to exit a burning building, is it not?

Lead Fraternal Order of Police troll John Catanzara, whose sole talent in life is intransigence, is threatening a massive call-in by Chicago's finest should Mayor Lightfoot follow through on the expectations outlined in her mandate.

Catanzara's mental acuity is on display when, after his predecessor's death from COVID last week, he refused to acknowledge the existence of the virus or the threat it presents to the members of his union.

(It is interesting to note that despite his public anti-vaxxer stance, Catanzara is vaccinated. And exactly what do the chumps who elected him think of that?)

It is again on display when the fact is made public that more cops have died from COVID than from all Black Lives Matter protests combined. (It isn't even close.) But is COVID a threat? Should cops vaccinate? Nope.

I'm reminded of Monty Python's Argument Clinic, wherein Terry Jones attempts to explain to John Cleese that “...an argument is a connected series of statements to establish a definite proposition”, to which Cleese answers “Not it isn't.”

Exasperated, Jones goes on to complain that this isn't an argument—it's contradiction. Cleese's response? “No it isn't.”

But in the end this isn't really about masks and vaccines, is it?

Nope. It's the same dynamic playing out between President Biden and Mitch McConnell in Washington DC. It's about control. Republicans created this power-at-all-costs dynamic and it's about nothing more than resisting Democrats.

Slit your throat. Or the public's. We don't care. But don't ever accede to a Democrat!

With things like the greater good and public health thrown under the bus for a prolonged sibling rivalry more appropriate for the sandbox than our halls of government, it's tempting to feel the looming global warming cataclysm couldn't have come at a better time.

Sorry for the misanthropic streak, but there you go.

After Growing up in Illinois, How the Hell Did I Become a Democrat? (pt. 2)

Welcome to part two of my After Growing up in Illinois, How the Hell Did I Become a Democrat? post, which examines the Democrats who have controlled Illinois politics for the majority of my life.

Michael Madigan was born on April 19, 1942 and again when he assumed the speakership of the Illinois House of Representatives in 1983.

One of the most cunning politicians to ever draw breath, Madigan parlayed the representation of a small, non-descript district on the southwest side of Chicago into what is effectively the governorship of Illinois.

I can count the things I agreed with former governor Bruce Rauner about on one finger, and that was his observation that Michael J. Madigan controlled the state of Illinois. John Kass, a Chicago Tribune columnist, refers to Illinois as Madiganistan.

I can't disagree.

Imagine a man with the unquenchable thirst for power and control as our current president. Then sand away the need for attention and adulation. Then add a couple dozen layers of epidermis.

Next, fold in a big ol' dose of self-control. Cunning. And bump up that IQ a little bit. Okay—a lot.

Now you're looking at Michael Madigan.

Madigan is Francis Urquhart, the slithering, deadly predator around whom the brilliant BBC production House of Cards revolved. Like Urquhart, Madigan never gets too greedy. Or impatient. Keeps his profile on the down low. And is as unyielding as a diamond.

Madigan lapsing into Twitterrea is unimaginable.

Sadly, this political genius never sought to use his talents to enable Illinois and its citizens. He used it to enable Michael Madigan.

First and foremost of Madigan's greatest hits is his relationship with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union, or AFSCME. For decades, he has successfully lobbied the state legislature to relentlessly fatten their pensions without ever troubling himself over the means to pay for it.

Which is why Illinois teeters on the cusp between solvency and ruin today. Our 137.3 billion-dollar unfunded pension liability leads the nation. Madigan has single-handedly placed Illinois' financial future into an industrial-strength meat grinder in a manner Donald Trump only dreams of.

And thanks to a re-written state constitution, it is forbidden to alter those benefits in any way, precluding the obvious common sense solution of downsizing them to a point that doesn't suck the state and its citizen into a deep, dark hole beyond the reach of light and time.

To paraphrase John F. Kennedy, ask not what Michael Madigan can do for you, ask what you can do for Michael Madigan. 

But at least Mike still has a job, right?

Sadly, tossing a state's economic viability into the garbage for political gain isn't a crime. But consorting with a public utility and a telecommunications giant for political gain is. And thanks to the same federal probe that has Ed Burke morphing into Sweaty Eddie, Mike Madigan might be rethinking some career choices.

Friends claim they have repeatedly advised the seventy-eight year-old to step down. What have you got left to prove? Or gain? Why don't you relax and enjoy your money for whatever time is left to you?

Like all power-mad obsessives, Madigan can't see a life beyond the state capitol. “What would I even do?” he is reported to answer. Hopefully the federal government will help supply an answer.

Ever make license plates, Mike?

This is just a rudimentary outline of Madigan's career. Truth to tell, there exist enough skeletons to fill every closet in the Palace of Versailles.

Again, I wonder at his ability to convert a few thousand votes in his home district into the governorship of the State of Illinois. It's akin to electing a president based on the returns of a single county. Or even state.

It's ludicrous. And insidious.

But change is afoot. With the bright lights of that investigation upon him, Madigan's cronies are distancing themselves ASAP. Governor JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, obviously relieved to have the weight of the bully's foot off their necks, are speaking out and calling for accountability.

Despite being a Democrat, I would be happy to see Madigan take his meals on a tray for the remainder of his natural life. It's the least he could do.

So. With so many bad examples of politicos so close to home, how the hell did I ever come to declare as a Democrat?

It took awhile. My father was a Republican, and in my first presidential election I voted like him. Gerald Ford was an affable guy who seemed capable of reuniting the county after the duress of the Nixon years.

Plus Jimmy Carter struck me as an overly cautious born-again religious zealot, which wasn't something I embraced in the sex, drugs and rock and roll-filled years of early-adulthood.

Carter was equally uninspiring in the next election, leading me to commit this crime against humanity: I voted for Ronald Reagan.

Within a year I was confessing to friends that I ought be in a maximum-security federal prison. It couldn't have been more obvious what a callow and ignorant human being I was not to have known the difference between Reagan and Carter.

It haunts me still.

But just like hangovers, frostbite and hemorrhoids, voting Republican has a lesson to teach us. And it was taught to me in indelible, bold-faced type: DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, VOTE REPUBLICAN AGAIN.

And with rare exceptions (all on a state or local level), I haven't.

While scores of Illinois and Chicago politicians qualify as shiftless, beady-eyed charlatans, their primary offenses were usually confined to accumulating power and any remuneration that happened to accompany it.

But on a national scale, Democrats can't hold a candle to the affrontery presented by a succession of Republican representatives, senators and presidents.

Gerrymandering? The endless manipulation and/or outright gutting of the voting rights act? Citizens United? Their class-leading corporate welfare? Their scared-shitless support of the NRA? Their sanctimonious embrace of the pro-life movement?

The artful button-pushing? The never-mind-the-democracy—what's good for us best practices? The willingness to sacrifice our air, our water and our land for the benefit of the business class? The willingness to exploit sexism and racial hatred in exchange for elected office? 

The belief that the pursuit and seizure of power justifies, well, anything?

At their worst, Democrats may be the ones fudging the estimated monthly payments on your new car sales contract. But Republicans are the ones tampering with your brakes.