CONTRAPHONIC

ContraPundit(Narcissist): the Former Future is Now

This article first appeared in the now defunct Action Man Magazine, in Summer 2002.

HOW THE BUSH ADMINSTRATION TAUGHT ME TO LOVE AGAIN

It all started with a snicker. George W. Bush, the governor of the state of Texas, appeared on the cover of The New York Times Magazine, sometime in late 1998, underneath the headline, "Is this Man the Next President?" The portrait was intensely personal, revealing every pore and burgeoning wrinkle on the governor's countenance. The slightly squinted eyes set against the fine-crafted leather skin that smirked in smart-aleck glee; lips pursing upwards in a defiant glance that seemed to say "damned if I care" to the question at hand. That simple expression, which has since become a constant sight of both assurance and embarrassment to the public during these decidedly different times, set the ball rolling into what has so far been the most tumultuous and invigorating presidency to test American fundamentals since Nixon.

Since Bush's barely legitimate ascendancy to the White House, the American people have been confronted with issues of a grander magnitude than in most recent times. From the broad overhaul of civil rights and increased warring powers in the aftermath of September 11th, to the recent wicked secret handshake failures of WorldCom, Enron, et. al., the past two years have been marked by immobilizing moments that, in lesser systems, would have proved fatal to the government. Yet here in America, we enjoy the luxury of politics as sport. We follow as much as we care to, allowing as much information as we want to digest affect our opinions, and most of us can live relatively assured that these decisions won't impede on us during the course of the work day. We can regard our leaders with disdain and disapproval, yet carry on with the in and outs of our lives without much forethought as to how the government might interfere with suppertime.

Still, we seem to be constantly concerned and aware that the government is but an indicator of our own public health. The Bush Administration has intensified this fear that the nation may be dramatically sick, resulting in Americans' increasing craving to know what happens behind closed doors. Take, for example, the undoing of corporate giants WorldCom and Enron. These companies, seemingly testimonials to the accomplishments that can be made in the free market, were all but obliterated when exposed to be nothing but imaginary storefronts. As Chapter 11 applications began to appear, the curtains rose to reveal wizards who turned out to be a boys club of stock manipulators and government insiders. While Americans have long known Big Business to be sleeping in the same bed as the government, such overt displays of collaboration and failure have never been so blatant. The message sent by this is that that something must be wrong with the way the system is operating at present time; that the government has tripped up on itself.

Here is where Americans exert their voice, within the subconscious power we exert that extends to the actions of politicians. Dismayed by the failings of Big Business and government, we the people, feel no hope for the economy. The markets drop and consumer confidence dwindles until we are shown actions are being taken to rectify and correct the shortcomings. Bring in Bush's Corporate Crackdown Committee, with his much-delighted comment which likened his staunch Republican-self to FDR, and we hope that the crisis is now being dealt with accordingly and all is headed in the right direction. The real issue within the Enron/WorldCom fiasco however, lies pinned underneath the facts, in that it brings two of our most basic impulses to a boiling head. Americans live by the credo of the independent self-made businessman and generally abhor the large conglomerate corporation that threatens self-subsistence. To follow this impulse of making it on one's own means, though, is to extend and expand your wealth as far as it will go, namely growing into a corporation. Corporations that exert wealth buy influence, which in turn produces a larger voice, and a larger voice means a place within the Oligarchy. America's trick has been to give the illusion to every man, woman and child who has ever gazed into red, white and blue intently that they, too, have the opportunity to join that Oligarchy. Our economic impulses are evil stepbrothers of the same coin. Enron and WorldCom's failures enraged us so because it illustrates both the disease of corporations and the susceptibility of our most ardent dreams of wealth. With both outlets exhausted, Americans seemingly have no place to turn their energies, and our newfound insecurities give way to doubts and questions over the legitimacy of such systems.

For bringing about such questions in dramatic form, one can say that President Bush has truly spearheaded the most progressive presidency in ages, by implementing such strategically malformed policies and beliefs to a citizenry that is poised to backlash. Backlash not into a Clintonian Democratic base, but into a more concerned informed, emphatic whole that may produce something entirely new. President Bush has succeeded in producing an unprecedented surge of patriotism. This is not simply due to the tragic terror attacks of September 11th. His entire modus operandi, supported by polls and yet disdained by popular conversation, has ignited the American conscience to check itself further in ways than it hasn't had to in years. For the answer to the ever-present American question of "Are you better now than then?" is not necessarily met with a positive response. We're a nation now stuck in third gear, desperately trying to accelerate back up into fourth but sputtering and stalling. And yet we're steadfastly resolved to make it in every capacity; our apathy and cynicism is slowly morphing into ideological energy that calls upon our most basic fundamental philosophies. To President Bush, and all the accompanying miseries that have marked his presidency, we should give a salute, for beginning to produce the impetus to change and put our beliefs back into focus. And onward to a better tomorrow...

Posted in Chicago Politic - Posted on Wed 14th May 2008 5.03PM No comments.

All on a Face

Our gut knows. Let's hope we feed our gut healthy thoughts though before we make a choice.

Posted in Chicago Politic - Posted on Fri 18th January 2008 11.46AM No comments.

Those Golden Arches...

Recently, plans were announced for the construction of a new Salvation Army mega-center in the West Pullman neighborhood on the Far South Side of Chicago. The 220,000 sq. foot facility, to be raised on the ashes of a vacant 33-acre industrial City Park District parcel, will sit on the corner of 119th St and South Loomis St. Designed by architect Helmut Jahn, designs are in place for a 5,000-seat indoor sports complex, alongside a 2,000-seat outdoor stadium, plus an aquatic center, a climbing wall, batting cages, a golf training center and an Academy of the Arts with a 750-seat auditorium. Illuminated from the outside by a 200-foot light tower, the center will take its namesake, The Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center, due to the magnificent donation of $109.8 million from Joan Kroc, widow of McDonald's pioneer Ray Kroc. The endowment comes out of the couple's generous bequeathing of $1.5 billion to the Salvation Army from their estate.

But the development of this community center isn't just a much-needed tool of corporate benevolence in a particularly needy, isolated neighborhood. If successful, The Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center should be regarded as an example of exactly the type of forward-thinking development that Chicago needs to implement in impoverished areas across the city. The trickle-down theory doesn't quite snake its way down from the sprouting South Loop and environs to the heavily polluted, oft-abandoned lots that comprise many parts of West Pullman. Yet, the trickle-down effect does work in inverse ways, literally taxing the burgeoning South Loop high-rises back onto the streets.

Chicago is a big, big place. The intersection of 119th St. and South Loomis looms far away from the thoughts of most Chicagoans. But it shouldn't. This past week, Mayor Daley was able to contentiously pass his 2008 budget with a uninspiring 29-21 City Council vote on the issue of raising property taxes. Lots of lip service was paid, by both for-and-against-the-hike aldermen about the cost of moving Chicago forward. While politicians scramble for answers to push through their agendas while tending to the City's bleeding coffers, Chicagoans, who elect these folks, should be demanding the City Council and Mayor take a deeper look into innovative developments such as the Kroc Center to help stop the ever-increasing need for raising taxes. By augmenting the steadily healthy growth of certain parts of the city with more development in outlying neighborhoods decimated by vacant lots, lack of infrastructure, and most glaringly, lack of jobs, it may end up hurting our pocketbooks a whole lot less.

Simply by developing a parcel of vacant land, the project at 119th and So. Loomis already is creating a revenue stream for the city, thereby softening, just a bit, the extent to which the tax bills burden. (Not to mention the City services taxpayers pay for that go into tending to vacant lots--rodent control, crime fighting, clean-up, etc.) But now imagine the amount of money that would be brought in if the vacant lots that dot the city-- estimates range from 10,000 to 80,000, of which a sizable portion are located on the West and South Sides and are city-owned -- were populated with buildings, with businesses, with tenants, with Chicagoans. That would be quite a cut into the ability of the City to raise taxes higher, as an influx of population wouldn't have the City spread so thin.

Which is what makes the Kroc Center so ambitiously exciting. If fully successful, the Kroc Center could be the impetus to seeing many of those abandoned lots developed in West Pullman. By localizing the development with world-class amenities and first-class architecture, in a neighborhood devoid of both, and providing an arena for neighborhood residents to cultivate and curate a sense of self and awareness with their surroundings, the Kroc Center has the potential to be an incubator of fresh ideas and faces for years to come in West Pullman. When people are drawn together and given venues to create and articulate ideas, and are given credence as such, more opportunities arise for others to be heard as well. And with the confluence of opportunities and ideas and interaction in the mix, combined with community and civic investment, communities develop and grow. The Kroc Center can be the catalyst for this to happen in West Pullman, and its example could perhaps be greater incentive for other institutions to invest and start-up in the neighborhood, and neighborhoods like it. If West Pullman can succeed in reclaiming itself through redevelopment, creating jobs, encouraging population stability and growth, strengthening the community, then we will all be benefiting from this. With a growing tax base, there'll be more to spread around through a lesser tax rate, which makes for a more developed, healthier city able to perfect the retention and creation of businesses and people.

Let's call upon our civic leaders to utilize their social responsibility in finding more opportunities like this to cultivate, which not only provide much-needed relief to the constituents of its locale, but relief to all of Chicago. In doing so, perhaps we will begin to realize how connected and not-so-different our neighborhoods really are.

Posted in Chicago Politic - Posted on Fri 16th November 2007 8.46AM No comments.