Thousands of CTU members, supporters will rally today

If Rahm Emanuel thought that Chicago teachers would roll over and play dead in the face of his war on the CTU,  he's badly mistaken. Yesterday it was announced that nearly 80 percent of CTU members have voted to reject the latest teacher contract proposal in recent straw polls — more than what would be needed to authorize a real strike under the new anti-union law, SB7.

At 3 this afternoon, thousands of Chicago teachers will meet in a unity rally inside the Auditorium Theater at State & Congress. At 4:30, many more will join them in a massive show of solidarity with a rally and march.
I will definitely be there. Wouldn't want to miss this historic event.

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Rahm's poll numbers have plummeted in recent weeks, mainly in reaction to his attacks on the CTU.  The mayor has shown himself to be little more than a union-busting corporate Republicrat in a town where there is no Republican Party. One party operative even astutely referred to him as the "Democrats' Karl Rove."

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Rahm spins

Despite all the mayor's ridiculous spin about how the city "survived" his NATO fiasco, it's clear to anyone who was downtown this weekend that the Summit was nothing less than and economic and political disaster for Chicago. On any normal sunny weekend in late May, the city's loop hotels, businesses, museums, and restaurants would be bustling. Instead, a huge section of the city looked like a ghost town except for the thousands of demonstrators and the army of cops brought out to contain them. The uncalled for beatings of peaceful protesters, the suspension of citizens' rights, the closings of city streets, businesses and museums, hardly make Chicago seem like a mecca for tourism.

The most common remark I heard from people on the street was, "thank God we didn't get the Olympics."
But I thought the funniest example of positive NATO spin was the claim that there was "less traffic congestion" during the Summit. Well, Duh! Yes, if you force thousands of downtown workers to stay home and not go to work, and if you close the Kennedy and other highways so that visiting dignitaries can move freely, there will likely be less traffic. That's the economic bonanza promised by the mayor.

Who are you crappin, Rahm?