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  • Politics Is Like Hiring A Hitman
    by Scott Woods inPolitical on2020-08-13

    For me, politics is like hiring a hitman. I have values and things I care about. I care enough about them to at least bother voting for 5 minutes every year for one issue or another. And because I care at least that much, I vote for people who align with the ability to realize the things I care about.

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  • Punching Above Our Weight
    by Roger Madison Jr. inPolitical on2020-07-24

    I believe our vote is the punctuation of our voice. Without that resounding exclamation mark, I believe our voices are just incoherent noise.

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  • BLACK PROGRESS AMIDST SOCIAL CHAOS
    by Roger Madison Jr. inPolitical on2020-06-16

    Recent events have raised the profile of historical injustice and inequities here in the USA. The entire world has taken note of the fact that BLACK LIVES MATTER.   We invite all of our friends to engage in actions that result in the greatest movement for change in our history. It is imperative that we take advantage of this opportunity to affect a positive change by ACTING IN OUR SELF-INTERESTS.

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  • Living in a Black No-Man's Land
    by Roger Madison Jr. inOur Community on2019-10-28

    There are many narratives that define the Black experience in America in this 2nd decade of the 21st century. Our striving over the centuries of our sojourn in this nation is a tapestry of every human experience -- oppression, enslavement, forced assimilation, dehumanization, exclusion, segregation, isolation, struggle, perseverance, achievement, excellence, celebration, mourning, despair, progress, setbacks, lynching, assassination, genocide, terror, self-hatred, low esteem, pride,...

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  • Fighting Racism
    by Scott Woods inOur Community on2018-10-25

    I had a boss who was racist. Not an outright bigot, of course; her toolbox was more subtle than most. We bumped heads a lot over inconsequential things. She frequently couldn’t keep my name out her mouth. Lot of gaslighting. You know…2018 style. I tried a lot of ways to combat or navigate her issues. None of them worked, and that’s saying a lot because I’m really good at fighting racism. But at the end of the day – every day – she was my boss, I had to deal with her, and that was that. Finally I...

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THE EMANUEL MACHINE - PT2: HOW NETWORKING WON THE RACE FOR MAYOR

 

Chicago and the Nation... It is now exactly one week from the city's most Historic Mayoral election to date. The votes are in and if you've been keeping up with current events (the score card) you know that Rahm Emanuel is now the new Mayor elect of the city of Chicago by winning a majority 55.2% of the vote. It was of no surprise to me and many others of the outcome of this election as I regrettably called this victory to the -T- the moment Rahm announced his campaign to run for the city's highest office and again in pat 1 of this article I wrote just over one week ago- despite his residency controversy - for which I know was going to be overturned so he could be placed on the Running Ballot. I will ex-plain how this was done a bit later...

For us African American business people and entrepreneurs, this mayoral election is yet another perfect example of how important it is to proficiently network, form alliances and strategies (banning together). The strategically disbursement & influence of power and money is overwhelmingly obvious in this Mayoral race. Regardless of whether these individuals are associated with various groups in the good ole boys network and or any other factions, they are still a NETWORK. They banned together to place each other into high power playing positions to benefit themselves and their social agenda's. In this case, they-(the Emanuel Machine) is playing a more sophisticated cloaked form of the game chess- to be able to checkmate all forms of society and government for their own agenda's and the highest power that be agenda plain and simple. This is a page taken from the Bush family playbook of chess.

As I mentioned in part 1 of this Story a week ago, the majority of African Americans that voted for Emanuel voted for him because of status. Rahm was chief of Staff to Barack Obama, a friend of Barack Obama, Richard J Daley and his brother's, friends of Hollywood moguls like Steven Spielberg (who contributed huge sums of money to his campaign), and let's not forget a healthy dose of endorsements from Bill Clinton and Barack Obama & other's. All of which was heavily media driven (the third leg networking partner). Yes, this is Rahm's immediate Network-HIS MACHINE. THIS NETWORK / MACHINE has generated so much money for his campaign that he reportedly stated he has 2 Million left in campaign funds which he claims will be use to aid & or endorse the remaining Aldermanic RUN-OFF candidates he supports. And now that he is the new Mayor elect, he is now building upon that machine to fit around him perfectly to govern & manipulate city hall and all of Chicago.

So here's how the Emanuel machine placed their Chess pieces.

Let's go back to the fall of 2010 when acting Mayor Richard J. Daley made the surprise announcement that he would not be running for another term as Mayor of the city of Chicago. We have come to find out that Mayor Daley called Emanuel prior to his very public / media announcement to inform him ahead of time-thus giving him the advantage of prepping and establishing an early candidacy. To capitalize on his Media advantage, Rahm immediately prepared his resignation speech to the house and knew he had the jumpstart he needed to gain the early advantage in Media exposure & campaign fund raising. By October 2010 he announced his resignation as chief of staff and simultaneously announced that he will run for Mayor of Chicago at a press conference.

Knowing this-in conjunction with the Chicago residency issue-he was taken off the ballot because he had not lived in Chicago for over 2 years since moving to Washington to serve as chief of staff. Emanuel filed with the Supreme Court to have his name kept on the Ballot. However, the law had stated (which was also quoted by an attorney during a televised interview) that you must be a resident in any city for one (1) year prior to running for any political /public office. By having Barack in the seat of president (a viable chess piece), he simply had Barack to make a phone call to Congress to have Emanuel's name placed on the Ballot. So indirectly they had changed the law to make sure Raham could get on the ballot. This is why I said that he (Raham) stole the Ballot in part 1 of this article. And it's harder to steal a ballot than steal an election. After Emanuel & co. accomplished this, all that was needed was for Rahms superstar status, the Media and the Obama & Clinton influence factor's to get them over the hump to win the election. This is how easy it was to call this election.

Despite a very low voter turnout due to apathy, ignorance and defiance, the poll's clearly showed that it was votes from the African American Community that helped Rahm win this election. The statistics from that Tuesday evening showed that the majority of voters in the Black wards voted for Rahm Emanuel.  The Black Vote in Chicago has always been a major factor in deciding a mayor. The biggest example is when Harold Washington (the city's first Black Mayor) was elected mayor in 1983. Through the mainstream media (Television, Radio & Print), most of the voters (particularly the Black community) were exposed to Rahm as if he were a celebrity / superstar status politician rubbing elbows with the most elite in Hollywood, business & politics besides working behind Barack Obama. The general public (particularly African Americans) did not know of or receive the information about Rahms non support of policies set forth for African Americans, minorities and also dissing of the CBC (The Congressional Black Caucus). They did not follow Black Media Outlets or receive information through the internet/emails to inform them nor did most of them seek it out. Many just took the face value of main stream media propaganda. This is why it is said in Black Media that African Americans as a whole are politically illiterate or ignorant.

Ironically, the person selected to take Rahms place as the chief of staff is none other than Mayor Daley's Brother- William Michael Daley (The placing of another chess piece in place no doubt). Sounds conspiratory??? Many believe so...  Why would Emanuel leave this high position in the Whitehouse (the highest ranking member of the Executive Office of the President of the United States) to become the Mayor of a city???  How about ego for one... Emanuel was still under Baracks shadow but as Mayor of Chicago, he is his own boss - THE BIG BOSS - Just like Mayor Richard J. Daley. But on a deeper more significant note; to put another Strategic chess piece in place of power. Power control of the hub of the nation in transportation and commerce, the control of gentrification which changes the voting patterns of the city and much more! All of this is due to the network of associates Emanuel has developed over the years and being part of the good ole boy network. They just didn't say they were a network and called it a day just to say they did something like many black entrepreneurs / business's do. They supported each other in business and politics and placed each other in positions of power. We as a people must focus on doing the same. Not for the bad, but for the good. We must stop polarizing ourselves and form our own blocks of networks so that we can build our economy and place each other in positions of power to gain our own political advantages (POWER) which will help our businesses stabilize, grow and prosper as well as each other.

In politics, when they say..."What goes around-comes around" they mean... The reverberations starts in Chicago, goes around the Nation and comes back to Chicago. It can happen for all of us as well.