Democratic reps call for deployment of National Guard in Chicago

[Hannah Bell]

Last week, two Illinois state representatives, John Fritchey and LaShawn Ford, both Democrats from the Chicago area, called on Governor Pat Quinn and Mayor Richard Daley to deploy the National Guard in the US city’s western and southern neighborhoods.

The state Democrats pointed to the deaths of 113 people, mostly African Americans, in street violence since the beginning of the year to justify their call to send in military troops...Crime is being used as a pretext to employ state violence and intimidation against the working class population of the city...Well aware that popular anger and class tensions are reaching a breaking point in Chicago—where the gap between the wealthy elite and the masses of working and poor people has never been larger—the proposal to dispatch the National Guard is part of an ongoing debate within the political establishment on how to best deal with potential “civil unrest.”

Like the anti-immigrant law in Arizona, the call for the National Guard is being used as a trial balloon nationally, in order to shift the debate further to the right, undermine constitutional prohibitions against the use of the military for domestic policing and legitimize the widespread use of troops in the cities for the first time since the ghetto rebellions of the 1960s.

In their remarks, Fritchey and Ford explicitly compared Chicago to Iraq and Afghanistan where military troops are being used to crush popular resistance to the US occupations. “As we speak,” Fritchey, a former assistant attorney general, said, “National Guard members are working side-by-side with our troops to fight a war halfway around the world. The unfortunate reality is that we have another war that is just as deadly taking place right in our backyard.”


http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/may2010/chic-m03.shtml

[glowing]

1. Is it really all that hard to understand that employing people would help tremendously.

WTF are they waiting for? Why is this dumb shit govt not enacting a new WPA program? There is soooo much work that needs to be done... People do not want to sit around on unemployment, and if private co's are not hiring, its up to govt to.. State's are broke, so they cannot.. Federal govt needs to.. AND while they are at it... if they are going to federally mandate every school district, they need to sweep teacher's onto the Federal payroll, get rid of the crazy assed idea that elected school boards really want to help children (yes some do, but many have a bigger agenda), and then schools and education wouldn't be hurting quite as much.. Perhaps the after school programs wouldn't continue to be shuttered.

Is it just so hard to be effective anymore? Honestly, its not that hard to understand what needs to happen.. its absolutely time to get rid of the dead end lifers in congress/ senate. Term limits, regulation of elections, and make it possible for people other than connected insiders and slimey lawyers to represent a large population that isn't all old and white.

[KharmaTrain]

3. Those Jobs Long Fled That Area...

The west side of Chicago is one step from being like its counterpart in Detroit...a once proud area with large factories and thriving business district but white flight in the 50s and early 60s (spurred by factories that moved out of the city for cheaper land and taxes in the suburbs). There weren't new factories to replace the old ones, leading to the decline of the area which then opened it up for low income and "Section 8" (publicly subsidized) housing. What retail jobs that were left vanished following the 1968 riots...yes, it's been that long and the area never recovered, it only got worse. Attempts were made to try to do "urban renewal" but most of that money ended up in corrupt politicians pockets. Eventually, the most profitable business in this area is tearing down delapated structures...but nothing is built to replace them...property values are non-existant. It's in this environment where drug dealing, prostitution and gangs dominate as in essence they're the largest "employer" in the area. They all but own the streets now and those who look at them the wrong way can easily become a target...it's become dangerous for the CPD alone to handle this problem.

Sadly, there's no easy fix here...areas have been "cleaned up" through "yuppification", but that only shifts the low income folks to other neighborhoods and with them goes the drugs and crime. The once massive Western Electric and Sears factories are gone...the only real opportunities are in small retail which is hard-pressed in this shitty economy. Bringing in larger retail will destroy the small ones and there's no industry to lure...a cycle of poverty that the government can't fix...only try to deal with.

[glowing]

5. Legalizing drugs is another hot button subject.. Sadly, prostitution will probably never end.

Where there's a person willing to buy, there's usually someone willing to sell... Why? I don't know. I've never had a problem getting sex...

[KharmaTrain]

7. In This Case I'd Have To Disagree...

I'm very much in favor of revising drug laws, but there's a difference between those who use in a recreational manner and those who are caught up in addiction both using and dealing. It's the money, not the drugs that lead to the violence and if it's not one form of vice then it'll be another. The dirty secret is much of the drug dealing doesn't involve people in those areas but outsiders...many suburban whites. While there may be tolerance for legalization of marijuana I don't see that happening to cocaine or heroin or meth...their main cash cows.

Again, it's a sad cycle here and I wish there was a quick fix, but far greater minds than mine have been trying to solve the problem of deteriorating inner cities for decades. I'm sure if there were the jobs, education and better infrastructure, you'd see a drop in crime and the importance of gangs, but with budgets strapped and unemployment hovering at 40% or better in many of these areas, it's not going to change any time soon.

Cheers...

[The Northerner]

2. Doesn't the Posse Comitatus Act prohibit this type of decision?

[KharmaTrain]

4. It's The Illinois National Guard...Not The Army...

Governors hold the right to activate these "well regulated militias" and have in the past. The ING were called in during the 1968 MLK riots. Bringing in the U.S. Army is another story...

[Scuba]

6. There's something happenin' here...

...what it is ain't exactly clear.

the condition of our inner cities is shameful. Unfortunately the wealthy elite like slave labor.

[Hannah Bell]

9. kick

[michreject]

8. I would bet that this is a Daley ploy

To bring attention to Chicago's gun(thug) problems. Daley thinks that it will influence the Supreme Court's McDonald V Chicago decision.

It ain't gonna work. Chicago's ban on handgun ownership will be thrown out.