GREAT CHICAGO FIRE FEST: “CATHARTIC POWER” AND THE PRIVATE SECTOR SHAKEDOWN

10/31/13

The latest manifestation of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s Bread and Circuses approach to government is upcoming Great Chicago Fire Festival.   One wonders why the Mayor feels a sudden urgency to celebrate the Great Chicago Fire, which took place in 1871, or 143 years before the 2014 date of the Fest.   If the Fest were schedule for 2021, or 150 years after the Fire, one could perhaps understand the need to commemorate the bad rap Mr. O’Leary has suffered for the last century and a half.  But why a Chicago Fire Festival in 2014?   But I digress.

Michelle Boone, the city’s Cultural Affairs and Special Events Commissioner, explains that there will be more to the Fire Fest than a commemoration of the blaze the failed to fell yours truly’s alma mater, St. Ignatius (at the time) College.  No, sir; this will be a far deeper event, an opportunity for collective reflection and expiation of sins.   It seems that Ms. Boone and her team will be working with Redmoon Theater company on the central core of the fest, which will feature “floating sculptures” representing “the thing they (community groups) most want to be rid of in their lives” that will then be set ablaze as they float along the Chicago River in a “huge public ritual” with “cathartic power.”

Several thoughts come to mind even before I reach the major point of this post.

First, hopefully, the campaign to clean up the Chicago River is sufficiently far along that we don’t have a Chicago version of Cleveland’s Cuyahoga incident in June, 1969, in which the mighty Cuyahoga burst into flames, as it had on several occasions before then.   One would hate to see such a “cathartic event” marred by igniting pollutants that cause a repeat of the event the Fire Fest was designed to commemorate.

Second, will Mayor Emanuel be on the list of things community groups “most want to be rid of in their lives”?  How about his predecessor’s parking meter deal?

Third, those who promote and design such “huge public rituals” with such immense “cathartic power” as burning barges on a river are often the same people who tell us religion is silly, riddled with superstition and loaded with meaningless and bizarre rituals.  They do so with a straight face.

Fourth, can’t those of you who are old enough to remember the man and/or who are as intensely interested in the politics of this town as yours truly just see the expression that would appear on Richard J. Daley’s face if one of his aides were to propose such a “huge public ritual” with “cathartic power”?   

Now, for the major point of the post...

The Great Chicago Fire Fest has, according to Ms. Boone, an “operating budget” of a cool $1 million, which should be no problem for a city with so much excess cash lying around.   Perhaps cognizant of such sarcastic criticism, Ms. Boone has assured us that “only” a quarter of a million will come from the city.  The rest will be recovered from, you guessed it, “the private sector,” that perennial milk cow of Messrs. Emanuel and Daley II.

It seems like “the private sector” is constantly being shaken down by the powers that be in this town.  The “private sector” was shaken down for the Olympics that never happened, for the NATO summit, for “after school initiatives” (THE PRIVATESECTOR’S ROLE IN “MODERN” CHICAGO:  SHUT UP AND PAY, 2/20/13), for the Mayor’s “infrastructure trust,” for Millennium Park, for the tourism initiative “Choose Chicago” (CHOOSE CHICAGO…OR CHOOSE MORE POLICE OFFICERS?, 2/21/13), and, seemingly, for whatever strikes the Mayor’s fancy and/or will help him build a record on which he can fashion a run at the White House.

There are two logical ramification of the great private sector shakedown in Chicago.   The first is that businesses in this city will grow sick and tired of seeing yet another pol with his hand out at their door and of being forced to kick in “for a better Chicago” or some such drivel.  They will thus have more reason, in addition to our state and city’s miserable fiscal conditions and the inevitable tax increases that they necessitate, to locate elsewhere.  Chicago’s a great city, and Illinois is a great state.  But there are plenty of great cities and states in this country and the cost of doing business, or simply living, around here is growing less and less competitive.

The second possible ramification is that what is going on when Super Rahm taps on the “private sector”’s shoulder is not a shakedown at all, but, rather, a voluntary arrangement, a cabal of conspirators in cahoots.  The “private sector” willingly bankrolls Mr. Emanuel’s “public rituals” with “cathartic power” in exchange for a wink and a nod, a promise not of ugly consequences for not contributing but, rather, an assurance that such contributions will be repaid in the future in some form, always involving the public purse.   The Mayor and his accomplices in the connected private sector are just exchanging IOUs that will be paid by the taxpaying citizens, many of whom are businesses and business owners who are not in on the deal, who are not the types of “private sector” people that the Mayor finds useful.

Whether businesses are being shaken down or are willingly cooperating for a piece of the pie baked by you, Mr. and Ms. Taxpayer, this is no way to run a government.  If the Mayor and his minions want to spend money on feel good initiatives designed to advance the Mayor’s political career, they should spend the money from public funds and honestly tax the citizenry to raise the money.  Then the citizens can decide, or could if the City Council were not a group of trained circus seals for the Mayor, whether they want to spend money on “public rituals” with “cathartic power.”

See my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, for further illumination on how things work in Chicago and Illinois politics.