[BretLudwig]

Blagojevich, Obama, And The Diversity€“Fueled "Chicago Way"

By Steve Sailer

"With the unveiling last week of hilarious wiretaps of Governor Rod
Blagojevich (D-IL) trying to auction off Barack Obamas Senate seat, the
eye-opening implications of the fact that the man elected to the White
House on a mantra of €œreform€� and €œchange€� is, in fact, a Chicago
politician has finally began to dawn on the MainStream Media.

Maybe.

This scandal is of particular interest to VDARE.COM readers because
immigrants and immigration policy play such a large role. For instance,
the go-betweens in the alleged deal in which Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.,
apparently the high bidder, would raise at least $1 million for
Blagojevich were members of what the Chicago Tribune calls [Blagojevich
Fundraiser Held by Jackson Allies Saturday, by David Kidwell, John Chase
and Dan Mihalopoulos, December 12, 2008] €œthe close-knit and politically
active Indian business community€�.

Another of Blagojevichs Senator schemes has proven embarrassing to one
of the strongest supporters of illegal immigration: the huge Service
Employees International Union, which claims to represent unskilled
workers, often illegal aliens. The SEIU is potent political force on the
far left, but it curiously less potent at getting higher pay for its
teeming members.

On page 60 of the criminal complaint:

"ROD BLAGOJEVICH stated, 'I want to make money.' During the call, ROD
BLAGOJEVICH, HARRIS, and Advisor B discussed the prospect of working a
three-way deal for the open Senate seat. HARRIS noted that ROD BLAGOJEVICH
is interested in taking a high-paying position with an organization called
'Change to Win,' which is connected to Service Employees International
Union ('SEIU'). HARRIS suggested that SEIU Official make ROD BLAGOJEVICH
the head of Change to Win and, in exchange, the President-elect could help
Change to Win with its legislative agenda on a national level."

In other words, in this scenario, Blagojevich, who has apparently been
under financial stress ever since his Lady Macbeth-type wife had to give
up her job as a real estate agent / bagwoman because most of her
commissions were barely disguised bribes for her husband, would promise to
resign as governor. Obama would lean on his friends in the SEIU to give the
disgraced governor a job paying $250-300,000 pushing SEIUs agenda (which
includes amnesty). Before moving on, Blago would appoint to the U.S. Senate
Valerie Jarrett, Michelle Obamas old boss when she worked for the Daley
Machine.

Tom Balanoff, head of the janitors local in Chicago and a close ally of
Obama, evidently conveyed Blagojevichs brainstorm to the Obama camp.

President Andy Sterns corrupt SEIU is less a union that battles for
higher wages for its members than a front for the Open Borders lobby
pushing for higher immigration. Wages are ultimately determined by supply
and demand, which is why Cesar Chavez, during his prime, ruthlessly fought
against illegal immigration in order to keep the supply of labor down and
the price of labor for his members up. But, in contrast, Sterns
strategy is to maximize the number of unskilled service workers paying
dues into his union at the expense of his members wages. Much of his
energies go toward promoting leftist political victories rather than
getting higher pay for his workers.

Obama isnt at all like the previous occupant of his Senate seat, Peter
Fitzgerald, a Republican. Fitzgerald served only one term from 1998-2004
because he upset so many local politicians by bringing to town federal
prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald (no relation), who has now arrested the last
two (2!) governors. Instead, Obama played ball with Illinois politics
rich array of colorful characters, such as Blagojevich, Tony Rezko, Richie
Daley, Emil Jones, and Rahm Emanuel.

Despite Obamas initial equivocations, it turns out that he had indeed
been discussing the Senate seat with Blagojevich through his new chief of
staff, Rahm Emanuel€”an energetic, patriotic fellow who had responded to
his nation being in peril during the 1991 Gulf War by rushing off to serve
as a volunteer at an army base €¦ an Israeli army base.

Seen up-close, Chicago politics resembles a bizarrely intricate
multi-generational soap opera.

Obama and Blagojevich have long been allies, but never have been
particularly friendly, coming as they do from very different ethnic bases.
They do have a close friend in common: Tony Rezko, the Syrian immigrant
operator whom Patrick Fitzgerald sent to jail earlier this year.

Even though Fat Tony is neither black nor Muslim, he got his start in
Chicagos big time as the business manager for Black Muslim interests,
including running the career of boxer Muhammad Ali. Rezko went on
fraudulently to win numerous affirmative action set-aside contracts using
Nation of Islam founder Elijah Muhammads son Jabir as his minority
frontman.

Rezko, always on the lookout for up-and-coming black political talent,
began recruiting Obama in 1990. In 2003, Obama, the new chairman of the
Illinois Senate Health and Human Services committee, may have repaid
Rezkos favors (such as $250,000 in fundraising) by recommending to the
floor SB 1332, which, in effect, gave Rezko corrupt control over who got
to build hospitals in Illinois.

In turn, that may help explain why Obama brought the notorious Rezko into
the deal to buy Obamas mansion in June 2005€”and why Rezko paid full
price while Obama got a $300,000 discount.

(By the standards of Russia or Mexico, these Chicago sums may seem paltry.
But thats how the game has been played in the Windy City ever since the
first Mayor Daley put Democratic Machine corruption on a sustainable basis
in the 1950s. The rakeoffs must be small enough and boring enough that they
engender cynicism among the public rather than outrage.)

€œWho sent you?€� is the classic question in Chicago politics. And the
answers can go back a generation.

Blagojevich, for example, owes his political career to marrying the
foul-mouthed daughter of Richard Mell, a powerful Chicago alderman. During
the notorious €œCouncil Wars€� of the mid-1980s, between Fast Eddie
Vrdolyaks white majority of aldermen and Obamas idol, the black
mayor (and former jailbird) Harold Washington, Mell initially sided with
the majority.

Obama chose to move to Chicago during the Council Wars in part because he
was tired of living in places without enough overt black-white conflict to
suit his tastes.

Then the political winds shifted in Washingtons favor. Mell abandoned
Vrdolyak and led a minority of the white aldermen into an alliance with
the mayor. But shortly after the 284-pound Washingtons triumphant
re-election in 1987, he died of a heart attack. This opened the door for
the coronation of the Promised Prince, Richard M. Daley, son of the late
six-term mayor Richard J. Daley, as Mayor-for-Life. (Assuming, of course,
that Richie has the good sense to drop dead before Fitzgerald gets him).

The Daley Dynastys grasp on the mayors office has frustrated both
Alderman Mell, now Richies leading white critic on the city council,
and Barack Obama. The president of the Harvard Law Review had baffled his
friends in Cambridge by insisting that he would pass up all the glittering
job offers he was receiving to return to the political trenches in Chicago
and avenge Harold Washington by getting himself elected mayor of Chicago.

Why mayor of Chicago? Because that job gives you what Obama has always
lusted after: power. By my count, the word "power" or its variants appears
82 times in Dreams from My Father, his autobiography devoted to his 25-year
struggle to prove he was €œblack enough€� to fulfill his fathers
dreams becoming a leader of the black race.

But Obamas attempt to follow Harold Washingtons career path€”state
legislature to House of Representatives to mayoralty€”was derailed in
2000. Obama was beaten two-to-one in the Democratic House primary by a
former Black Panther. Although Obama carried the white vote in his
district, black voters didnt find Obama black enough. Apparently not
enough of them had made it all the way through the 460 pages of Dreams
from My Father to the happy conclusion where Obama decides that, yes, he
is black enough.

Obama went into a long depression following the rejection of his €œracial
credentials€� by authentic African-Americans. After recovering, he
launched himself on a new career€”as the black candidate who tells whites
what they want to hear.

At the same time, Blagojevich set off to get himself elected Governor of
Illinois as a €œreformer€� promising €œchange€�. In 2002, he replaced
Republican George Ryan (whom Fitzgerald later sent to prison). Blago
immediately turned much of the states governance over to Rezko,
justifying letting Rezko staff his administration on grounds of €¦
diversity!

Blago said he sought Fat Tonys

"advice on recommendations for agency directors €¦ [because] he was able
to bring us people who were not part of state government before. And he
has connections and roots in the African American community, and he could
help us with candidates . . . because part of what we wanted to do was to
have a diverse administration."

While Obama and his cronies (I havent even gotten to Emil Jones, his
godfather in the state senate) make for fascinating gossip, all this
raises a more general questions: whats the deal with Chicago? Why is it
so notorious for parasitical politicians?

There are two main reasons.

* First, as Mrs. Blagojevich no doubt told her former clients in the
real estate business: location, location, location.

Beginning in 1673, French fur trappers would portage their canoes about a
mile through whats now suburban Chicago to get from North Americas
second most important watershed (the Great Lakes / St. Lawrence River) to
its most important (the Mississippi River). Chicago has grown up as the
natural linchpin of North Americas water transport. Moreover, because
Lake Michigan extends so far south, railroad and highway routes from the
Northeast to the northern Midwest and the Pacific Northwest inevitably go
through the Chicago area.

More recently, the enormous expansion of OHare airport under the first
Mayor Daley made the Chicago area an ideal home base for frequent fliers.

So Chicago is, by nature and nurture, a great location to do business. And
thus its a great place for politicians who leech off the wealth
generated by businesses.

* The second main reason for Chicagos corruption: Chicagos
diversity.

Its long history as a major immigrant gateway means that the population is
greatly divided by ethnicity. As Singapores Lee Kuan Yew, perhaps the
most adept statesman of the 20th Century, noted: "In multiracial
societies, you don't vote in accordance with your economic interests and
social interests, you vote in accordance with race and religion."

The voters who comprise Chicagos various ethnic blocs know their
representatives are sonsabitches. But at least they are their
sonsabitches.

You let your groups veteran politicians pocket some bribes because, if
you got all high and mighty and threw the bums out and replaced them with
some public-spirited novices, your ethnic group would find itself
despoiled by all the other ethnic groups wily old politicians.

In summary: clearly, the Main Stream Media failed to tell us much about
the real Obama.

The fact is that hes much more interesting than his canned image as the
post-racial reconciler.

Not as edifying, perhaps€”but interesting.

And the Obama Presidency is just going to get more and more interesting.

To learn who Obama really is, from his own words, my new book, buy my
readers guide to the President-Elects autobiography Americas
Half-Blood Prince: Barack Obamas €œStory of Race and
Inheritance"€”now available in paperback!"


http://www.vdare.com/sailer/081214_blagojevich.htm

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