Bernie Sanders Endorses Chuy Garcia, Calls Chicago Election a ‘Political Revolution’

[marmar]

(In These Times) Underscoring the extent to which Chicago’s April 7 election has taken on national symbolism, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) visited a church on Chicago’s Southeast Side on April 2 to call for a “political revolution” and rally behind mayoral hopeful Jesus “Chuy” Garcia and 10th ward City Council candidate Sue Sadlowski Garza.

Sanders told the wildly cheering crowd of several hundred Southeast Side residents that Garcia and Sadlowski Garza—a Chicago Teachers Union leader from a family of vaunted United Steelworkers activists—represent a break from the corporate-minded “oligarchy” that has ruled on municipal, state and federal levels.

Garcia, Sadlowski Garza, CTU President Karen Lewis and members of the crowd also came to the stage to speak, many describing the Southeast Side as symbolic of the way working-class neighborhoods have been decimated by globalization and then neglected by neoliberal politicians. The Southeast Side was once a thriving industrial area where tens of thousands of people worked well-paying union jobs in the steel mills. But as the steel industry largely moved overseas in search of cheaper labor, the neighborhood became plagued by unemployment and disinvestment. Residents say things have grew worse as successive mayoral administrations focused on downtown and wealthier areas, allowing crime and structural deterioration in their neighborhoods to spiral.

“Where there was a unified 10th ward, there is now isolation; where there were safe streets, now there are kids turning to gangs and drugs and despair,” Sadlowski Garza lamented. “None of this happened to us by accident.” ..............(more)

http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17814/bernie_sanders_endorses_chuy_garcia_in_chicago_mayoral_election

[ladjf]

1. As usual, Senator clearly lets everyone know what side he is one. nt