Clergy March on Billionaires as Moral Mondays Come to Chicago

[marmar]

[font size="1"]A demonstrator dressed as a camel attempts to pass through the eye of a needle in a demonstration of clergy and activists against billionaire Sam Zell, ally to near-billionaire Illinois Governor Rauner. (Martin de Bourmont)[/font]

(In These Times) Rain fell steadily in front of 2 N. Riverside Plaza in downtown Chicago Monday morning as police herded 28 clergy and grassroots activists into a police van. The activists, including Chicago’s Lutheran Bishop Wayne Miller, rallied before marching on the corporate headquarters of billionaire Sam Zell who is chairman of the Chicago-based private investment firm Equity Group Investments and a former owner of the Chicago Tribune, as part of Chicago’s third “Moral Mondays” demonstration.

“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a man who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven,” said Bishop Miller, beginning with a few verses from Matthew 19 and referencing the immense wealth of both Zell and near-billionaire Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner, who has proposed immense state budget cuts the activists oppose.

Yet hope still existed for the two, Miller added, in repentance. “You will never get a camel through the eye if you are not aiming in the right place. Rauner, you are off the mark!” he stated.

Zell, a supporter of Gov. Rauner, awarded $4 million to Turnaround Illinois, a Rauner-allied super political action committee that supports banning political donations by government worker unions and asserts the authority of local governing bodies to decide which workplace topics union members can bargain over. Most controversial and far-reaching of the policies submitted by Turnaround Illinois are the massive cuts proposed for health care, education and public transit. ................(more)

http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/18075/clergy_march_on_billionaires_as_moral_mondays_come_to_chicago