Capitalism 2.0. Is the lion really lying down with the lamb?

What's going on here? Corporate America, Hollywood, and NFL owners all rebranding and advertising Black Lives Matter themes, doling out billions in philanthropic grants to left and progressive organizations, and even heaping faint praise on socialists. 

From watching the TV ads, one would think that the Fortune 500 corporations had all joined BLM, that the NFL had made things right with Colin Kaepernick, and that the Golden Globes weren't being awarded by a white-only board. 

In this vein, two recent articles in Crain's Chicago Business caught my attention this week. The first, "City Council's socialists see themselves as an antidote to the status quo", by reporter A.D. Quig, is surprisingly praiseful of a "socialist bloc" of aldermen, elected to the Council in the 2019 anti-machine wave that included the landslide election of Mayor Lori Lightfoot. 

Quig writes: 

Their legislative scoreboard isn't terribly impressive, and they've rankled some of their colleagues and the mayor along the way. But they've undoubtedly moved the needle: They changed city policy to fight gentrification in Woodlawn, along the 606 trail and in Pilsen. They've pushed officials to at least examine wresting control of Chicago's electrical grid from ComEd. And in the most recent city budget, they helped boost funding for non-police anti-violence programs and to have mental health workers respond to certain emergency calls instead of cops.

Corporate capitalists lauding socialist aldermen? Is the lion really lying down with the lamb or just preparing lamb stew? I would say, a little of both -- a divide and conquer game.

In the second, "Capitalism 2.0, it's not just about profits", Judith Crown claims there's a "new capitalism" that is all about socially conscious investors seeking "to improve sustainability and benefit the social good while still making money."

Putting lipstick on a pig? Of course. 

Corporate greed has never been more rapacious. The gap between the one-percent and the rest of us has never been wider, and it's been made more apparent by a pandemic and global recession that has reproduced and magnified social inequality and put thousands of working-class and poor families on long food lines while Wall St. booms. 

According to Oxfam, the world’s 10 richest billionaires — which include Amazon C.E.O. Jeff Bezos, Microsoft’s Bill Gates, and LVMH luxury group’s CEO Bernard Arnault — have collectively seen their wealth grow by $540 billion over this period. 

Big philanthropy using a portion of its enormous concentration of wealth to improve its image while avoiding taxation is nothing new. It goes back to the days of Carnegie and Rockefeller. But there's more to it than that. 

(Dissent Magazine)

Warren Buffett's son Peter calls it "Philanthropic Colonialism", and he oughta know:

As more lives and communities are destroyed by the system that creates vast amounts of wealth for the few, the more heroic it sounds to “give back.” It’s what I would call “conscience laundering” — feeling better about accumulating more than any one person could possibly need to live on by sprinkling a little around as an act of charity.

So why is this sop to City Council socialists, now coming from the voice of big business in Chicago?

Well, for one thing, it's definitely not a "sea change," but the same old, same old in response to popular revolts and grassroots reform. It's what we used to call "riot insurance" back in the '60s. It's new in that it includes and is shaped by new technologies and includes innovative and created corporate branding strategies combined with the use of, what I call power philanthropy. That is, huge foundations created by the like of Bill Gates as alternatives to government, public space, and decision-making.

That's not to say there aren't real divisions among the plutocrats, populists, and fascists or well-intentioned philanthropists who truly support social justice and environmental movements on the ground. 

But the system's short-term response to popular revolts is still tactical, a mixture of political repression along with some concessions and hard-won reforms for racial justice and expanding the social safety net. Then there's the long-term, strategic response -- an ideological barrage fomenting division, confusion, and false consciousness, the normalization of inequality the manufacturing of consent. 

******

It was largely these insights about how power is constituted in the realm of ideas and knowledge, along side of repressive force, that pushed many of us progressive educators to develop the popular education practices, to contest accepted norms of legitimacy and foment critical thinking skills and habits of the mind in our classrooms and communities. All this in the face of a top-down corporate reform, heavily-funded by these same power philanthropists which was often successful in buying off leaders and fomenting divisions and splits at the base. 

Our strategy included the adult literacy and consciousness-raising methods of Paulo Freire in his Pedagogy of the Oppressed, methods of participatory action research (PAR), and many other approaches to social transformation, popular media, communication, and cultural action.

I'll leave it to the current generation of activists, organizers, and educators to develop their own counter-strategies, and they are doing just that. 

There's no better example I can think of than the current organizing drive among Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama, which ties labor issues to Black Lives Matter and issues of racial equality. That's the recipe, it seems to me. 

United front against Trump doesn't mean struggle ends.

"Ella Baker, a giant of the civil rights movement, left us with this wisdom: Give people light and they will find a way." -- Joe Biden 

"You and I cannot be free in America or anywhere else where there is capitalism and imperialism." --  Ella Baker, Puerto Rico Solidarity Rally 1974

Yes, I was captivated as usual by the Obama speeches and deeply moved by Kamala Harris' personal story and will definitely try to beat my brother Fred to the polls this time around to vote the anti-Trump ticket from top to bottom.

Although you might not have gotten this from the convention's singular focus on Biden/Harris, we also need to get out the vote for congressional candidates and take back the Senate if we are to begin undoing the damage Trump's regime has caused. My hunch is, congressional candidates weren't getting much play at the DNC so as not to offend or scare away the anti-Trump Republicans.

It's pretty clear that a united-front strategy -- all hands on deck -- is the right one to take down Trump in November even though it leaves some ("they're all the same") ultra-lefties grumpy and feeling betrayed by their base. But it's also important to remember that even within a united front, struggle goes on. Without that struggle -- and there is room for struggle -- the tone of the Democratic Convention would have been far different and minus progressive voices that made it through Nancy Pelosi's loyalty screen.

It seemed almost pro forma for convention speakers to tip their hat to SNCC '60s freedom fighters at the start of every speech. It shows how much the national BLM protests have forced the party leftward in order to maintain its credibility with labor, immigrants, and younger Black and Latinx voters and how much today's Democratic Party leaders like Harris (admittedly) have to stand on the shoulders of their Black Freedom Movement forerunners.

And these women inspired us to pick up the torch, and fight on. Women like Mary Church Terrell and Mary McCleod Bethune. Fannie Lou Hamer and Diane Nash. Constance Baker Motley and the great Shirley Chisholm. -- Kamala Harris speech

Despite all the civil-rights chatter, it became pretty clear that Pelosi's right-center conception of the anti-Trump united front is far different from ours. Hers is essentially a Kasich/Clinton/Obama coalition that even welcomes with open arms, union-busters, Pentagon and NRA faves, global-warming deniers, right-to-lifers, and neocon Republicans while keeping progressive and left-leaning Democrats at arm's length or out the door completely.

I know, AOC got her minute in the sun (and a powerful minute it was) and Bernie Sanders is too legit to quit. But I'm amazed, though not really surprised to see even loyal progressive Texas Democrats like Julian Castro and Beto O'Rourke, let alone Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib getting short shrift at the DNC. Remember Omar and Tlaib are big-time vote-getters and election winners in crucial swing states MI and MN.

Yet, Pelosi, Biden, and other Dem leaders feel compelled to attack them and other Squad members publicly and are, hopefully unsuccessfully, backing machine pols against them in local primaries. Case in point is Pelosi's recent endorsement of Rep. Joe Kennedy III in a primary challenge against progressive Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey.

The struggle continues

Y'all keep coming for @lsarsour so we will keep showing up for her and let you know that we stand w our sister in solidarity. Hi @lsarsour - we got your back! pic.twitter.com/LhMiFAMPb1

— Harish I. Patel (@iamharishipatel) August 21, 2020

A Paper Tiger

Critics said the president is testing out heavy-handed enforcement in Portland, a largely white city known as one of the most progressive in the nation, before moving on to more diverse cities. -- USA Today

Donald Trump is a paper tiger, meaning he's dangerous but weak. He's also at times, our best organizer. Sending his shock troops into Portland failed in its stated purpose but helped unify the city behind the protest movement which led to a resounding victory last night.

Current polls have Trump looking like a loser in November. Not just him but down-ticket Republicans as well. Control of the Senate is now up for grabs. He's not only running behind in the midwest battleground states, but he's being challenged and even falling behind in his own base areas like Texas.

Once several of his Republican allies started peeling off, his response has been to pretty much abandon all democratic means and resort to open violence and intimidation, flailing about wildly, and directing his point of attack directly at the growing protest movement and at the Democrats' base in the cities where the movement has taken its greatest hold. All that's just made things worse for him.

He's failed miserably at painting all opposition forces as "radical leftists", "anarchists", and "terrorists." His threats to use of federal storm troopers to "dominate" the protesters and exact retribution have come up empty.

"You have to dominate or you'll look like a bunch of jerks, you have to arrest and try people," the President told the governors in a June call from the basement White House Situation Room, according to an audio recording of the call obtained by CNN.

But far from dominating, his threats have fallen flat and have only broadened the resistance of local mayors and state officials and made him look even weaker. After being overwhelmed by militant protesters and the wall of moms in Portland last night, Trump's shock troops retreated back to their federal building fortress, but not before gassing the crowd which included Mayor Ted Wheeler who had joined protesters in the streets.

Wall of Moms

Wheeler, a Democrat, was among the 15 mayors, including Lori Lightfoot of Chicago, Bottoms of Atlanta, and Bowser of D.C. who wrote an open letter to the Dept. of Justice on Wednesday in which they condemned Trump for an “abuse of power” in deploying federal forces in cities.

After last night's setback in the streets of Portland, Trump made a call to Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot. A contrite-sounding Trump walked back his threat to send troops into Chicago.

Philly's progressive D.A. Larry Krasner echoed the mayors, agreeing to work cooperatively with federal officials but threatening to have uninvited Trump shock troops arrested if they attacked protesters

“Anyone, including federal law enforcement, who unlawfully assaults and kidnaps people will face criminal charges from my office.”-- Philly DA Larry Krasner https://t.co/aOLPMzWZo8 via @citylab

— Mike Klonsky (@mikeklonsky) July 22, 2020

Finally, Trump is even implying that he may not leave office when he loses the election. It would give me great pleasure to be among the grand army of citizens that escorts him and his grifter family from the White House.

Hat's off to Julián Castro

Democratic presidential hopeful Julian Castro joins Black Lives Matter co-founder Melina Abdullah and others in calling for two LAPD officers to be fired in the police shooting of Grechario Mack.

Julián Castro was the only presidential candidate aware enough to pay tribute to Fred Hampton on the 50th anniversary of Fred's assassination by Chicago cops.

Fred Hampton was only 21 when he was murdered by Chicago Police 50 years ago today.

He fought for better education and housing, to end hunger and police violence.

He taught that where there's people, there's power. We can live that lesson today.https://t.co/7SZeGgtejT

— Julián Castro (@JulianCastro) December 4, 2019

On Tuesday, Castro joined a Black Lives Matter protest in Los Angeles, demanding before a crowd gathered outside LAPD headquarters that two officers be fired for killing Grechario Mack. This would’ve been unthinkable for a presidential hopeful four years ago, writes Zak Cheney-Rice at New York Magazine. 

Cheney-Rice is quick to point out that Castro is polling at less than one percent nationally and failed to qualify for the November primary debate, and appears likely to miss December’s as well.

...he’s done himself few favors by pursuing a platform of dubious popularity aimed at helping a small subset of suffering people who have negligible political influence.

But the cards were stacked against Castro and against any non-white candidate in a race so controlled by the party hierarchy and corporate power. All the remaining anointed Democratic debaters are white and all of them seem to me, to be misreading the "negligible political influence" of that so-called "small subset of suffering people." Democrats will do that at their own peril.

Rep. Bobby Rush, a former Chicago Panther himself, stood up on the House floor and recounted the police attack of the house on Monroe St. that fateful night of December 4th.

Madam Speaker, on a cold December morning, 4:30 A.M. Nobody was moving on the streets. They came into that west side community, in Edison trucks. They came into that community with machine guns with the single purpose of killing Fred Hampton and everybody else who was in that apartment. They came using public utility trucks. Not police cars. And in that hour of the of morning. They knocked on the door when they got to that apartment. 

Half of the police officers went to the front door, half went to the rear door.They knocked on the door and they said and one of the gentlemen inside the apartment, he asked who is it, at 4:30 in the morning. And he got a response from one of them police officers and answered by saying, Tommy. And when he said Tommy, he came in shooting. 

I was out in L.A. that night and we got the call around 4 a.m. west coast time telling us that Fred and Mark Clark had been murdered. It was a call that will stay in my memory forever.

Hard to get a handle on mayor’s race. Some polling please.

Polls show community support growing for striking L.A. teachers.

Why no serious polling on Chicago mayor’s race since the Burke debacle? Before Burke, poll leader, Preckwinkle was at only 18%. Could someone make the runoff with 12-15%. Maybe candidates are embarrassed to learn their numbers are so low.

Yes, interest in the race is waning since Rahm dropped out and current front-runners are all late-comers to the race with strong machine ties.

Progressives have no real horse in it despite early CTU/SEIU endorsements of Preckwinkle. But her team’s campaign stumbles have some lefties moving towards Amara Enyia and Lori Lightfoot. Voters yawning. Am I wrong? I’d like to see some polling, please. Media seems just focused on the money race.

Brother Fred and I will be talking about all this and more on Friday with BLM and Assata’s Daughters organizer, Page May along with Tom Gradel, co-author of Corrupt Illinois: Patronage, Cronyism, and Criminality. Tune in 11–noon at WLPN 105.5 FM in Chicago. Live streaming at www.lumpenradio.com.

Speaking of polling, this one shows strong public support for striking teachers in L.A.. The SurveyUSA poll found that almost two-thirds of people polled support the strike, with 15 percent opposed and about 20 percent unsure.

LAUSD Supt. and corporate shill, Austin Beutner is trying his best to scab-out the strike. That could make things hot on the picket lines and even hotter once the strike is settled.

Top Democrats are split on the strike, with DNC Chair Tom Perez, Sens. Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren supporting the teachers and corporate-wingers led by Arne Duncan attacking them. Several progressive House members have also declared their support with Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chairs Pramila Jayapal (Wash.) and Mark Pocan (Wis.), as well as Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) and Ro Khanna (Calif.) tweeting their solidarity.

Remember in 2010, when Duncan came out in support of the L.A. district posting pictures of teachers in the LA Times? It was an attempt to "shine a light" on teachers whose students had lower than average standardized test scores. Duncan claimed there were thousands of teachers longing for their scores to be posted in the new media. He even predicted that in the years ahead, hundreds of school districts would be doing the same.

What a crock that was. 

My next challenge

Tomorrow is the first big test for my new knee following a small rehab setback. I'm scheduled to speak on a panel on The Life and Legacies of Fred Hampton at the American History Assoc. convention over at the Palmer House in Chicago.

I'm going to have to navigate the stairs with crutches, climb in and out of a taxi and make it up to the 6th floor and back.

I'm psyched.

The panel, is organized by Univ. of Iowa Prof. Simon Balto. He's the author of Occupied Territory: Policing Black Chicago from Red Summer to Black Power.

Here's more info on the meeting in Chicago, in case you want to attend:

AHA Session 12

Thursday, January 3, 2019: 1:30 PM-3:00 PM

Water Tower Parlor (Palmer House Hilton, Sixth Floor)

Panel Chair:Barbara Ransby, University of Illinois at Chicago

Panel:Page May, Assata's Daughters

Toussaint Losier, University of Massachusetts AmherstSimon Balto, University of Iowa 

Michael Klonsky, Hitting Left

Aislinn Pulley, Black Lives Matter Chicago

Jakobi Williams, Indiana University

Then on Friday, Brother Fred and I are back on the air at Hitting Left. Our in-studio guest will be Don Rose, former press secretary to both Dr. Martin Luther King and Chicago Mayor Harold Washington.

Tune in at 11 a.m. on www.lumpenradio.com
Let's do this...

Rahm, no heart for the struggle. Who will wear the crown?

Hey little emperor come down from you throne

And let another emperor climb on -- Steve Earle

After a brief celebration and a listen, or two, or three, to Little Emperor, I came back down to Earth and began considering the changes ahead in a post-Rahm Chicago and the reshaping of the upcoming mayor's race.

Most, but not all of my friends are exuberant over the news that Rahm is bailing after two terms. He claims he's trying to save us Chicagoans from a bloody election battle (no heart) and that he wants to spend more time with Amy and the kids. But we all know that's bullshit. I'm kind of sorry we didn't get a chance to give him a beating in the election. But I'll take it.

Like his predecessor, Mayor Daley, Rahm could read the numbers on the wall. His closest advisors and wealthy patrons have been telling him since May that his pathway to victory was closing and with the Laquan McDonald cover-up re-emerging around the Van Dyke trial, more protesters about to fill the streets and block up the highways, and more school-closing battles on the horizon... Discretion became the better part of valor. Tough-talking Rahm wimped out.

But we need to keep in mind, he's still there 'til February and a lame duck can do a lot of harm, especially in the schools. It's called, loot-and-pillage. Rahm can also use his campaign cash and his organization to back a candidate of his choosing. Somebody with like-minded politics but without all his baggage.

At first I was thinking, someone like Arne Duncan. He's been feathering his nest over at the Emerson Collective since his return from his Race To The Top days as Obama's ed chief. But talk about baggage? My god! And Duncan would be running, not only against the CTU and every conscious teacher in the city, but against charter and testing-loving Paul Vallas, the very man who first brought him into the ed game in Chicago. A three-way split in the white vote would leave Rahm's minions in the same shape they are already in.

So since a lot of you have been asking. My bet that the next wave of big election cash will flow towards Toni Preckwinkle and that a LatinX will enter the race, just like Ald. Rick Munoz told us they would, when he was our guest on Hitting Left. Possibly someone like IL Comptroller, Susana Mendoza.

Then again, as Susan never lets me forget, I thought Clinton would beat Trump.

The youngest mayoral candidate and Black Lives Matter activist, Ja'mal Green will be our guest on Hitting Left this Friday, 11-Noon. Lots to talk about. You bet. 

Chicago proud: The Resistance started here

Anti-Trump protest at UIC, March 2016. 

Omarosa's tell-all book makes reference to the March 2016 anti-Trump protest which shut down his campaign rally and sent DT scurrying out of town, not to return again. The protest “left a deep scar”, writes Omarosa Manigault Newman. 

According to the Sun-Times:

“There was a lot of blame to go around for the failure of the Chicago event,” she writes. “We blamed the protesters. We blamed law enforcement for not properly managing the situation. We blamed Chicago and its mayor, Obama acolyte Rahm Emanuel, for not supplying adequate security resources. We blamed everything and everyone, except for Donald Trump.”

“When I look back and try to pinpoint the moment when, in my own heart, I adopted an ‘us’ versus ‘them’ mind-set, it was that night in Chicago in March 2016. We all had a bunker mentality . . . I never stopped to ask myself what all this conflict meant for the future of the country. If I acknowledged my role in what was happening, I would have had to come to terms with nearly thirteen years of suppressed doubts and concerns about Donald Trump, and I was simply incapable of doing that at that point.”

Actually, the UIC rally was relatively peaceful (a few scuffles broke out inside the Arena as they always do at Trump rallies). Some 25,000 people gathered peacefully outside the Pavillion immediately following the reports that Trump had slipped into town. Seeing that the few hundred of his supporters would be badly outnumbered by the huge anti-Trump crowd, he called off the rally and split town, tail between his legs.

Writes Omarosa:

“The night of the Chicago rally left a deep scar on my consciousness, and I’d never even reached the city. From my place in the figurative bunker, I came out aggressively to support candidate Trump and believed the argument that the protesters were at fault.”

While the protest, organized by a few student groups, was a great success, it happened despite dire warnings of consequenses from a few frightened Democrats and some in the media.

The Tribune's Ron Grossman, exaggerated the level of violence and implored us to "halt the demonstrations", warning Trump would "profit" from "images of punching and cursing partisans" on the evening news. According to Grossman, "It doesn't matter whose cause is just and whose is not."

But it does indeed matter and there was no "profit" for Trump, writes Omarosa.

 In the aftermath of the botched rally, she says she was instructed to stick to the campaign strategy of “whataboutism” while making the rounds on cable news, pivoting from questions about provoking conflict to attacking Hillary Clinton over the FBI investigation into her emails.

“It was the only thing we had. At that point, we lacked a platform, plans, big ideas about foreign or domestic policy. All we had was Trump’s bluster, the MAGA slogan, and Hillary’s emails.”

Grossman went on to attack, not only the UIC protest, but protest movements in general, including Black Lives Matter and the anti-Vietnam War protests of the '60.

I think it's fair to say that today's Resistance movement against Trumpism was born that day in Chicago. City after city, followed suit right up through the inauguration, and Women's March and today, make it virtually impossible for Trump to travel anywhere outside of his red base areas.

The same hold true for his neo-fascist and white-supremacist supporters.

Let's keep marching people. It won't fall by itself.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Ocassio-Cortez at Netroots: “Our swing voter is not red to blue. It's non-voter to voter." 

Anoa Changa at Netroots

“I think Trump’s win scared the shit out of everybody. I think it’s been a wakeup call for a lot of people that we have to invest. We can’t just do the traditional model where we only talk to super-voters.”

That doesn’t mean ignoring whites and Trump voters. Instead, "it’s rejecting the notion that our way to victory is having a centrist, moderate right-leaning strategy that feels like we could peel off Romney Republicans, versus investing in communities of color, marginalized groups and progressive white people." -- The Atlantic

Unite the Right comes to D.C.

Jackie Jeter ATU Local 689 President 

“More than 80% of Local 689’s membership is people of color, the very people that the Ku Klux Klan and other white nationalist groups have killed, harassed and violated. The union has declared that it will not play a role in their special accommodation.” -- Think Progress

Michael Jordan

"I support L.J.," Jordan told NBC News through a spokesperson. "He's doing an amazing job for his community." -- The Hill 

Elijah Edwards, Pres. AFSCME Local #2858

Since the Janus decision, "District 31's membership has gone up..." -- Hitting Left

Kimberly Wasserman, executive director of the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization

“There’s been enough injustice done in different communities. We’re starting to fight back.”

At this time & place for any African American, @KingJames @donlemon @RepMaxineWaters @repjohnlewis & #NFL plyrs to be criticised by @realdonaldtrump means you must be doing something right! As I have said before- Its the biggest compliment you can get. @TwitterSports @MSNBC @CNN

— TheBillRussell (@RealBillRussell) August 5, 2018

Did Chicago cop really say he's entitled to collect from his victim's family? Depends on which paper you read.

LaTarsha Jones, center, a daughter of Bettie Jones, is comforted by family and friends in front of Jones' apartment building in the West Garfield Park neighborhood Dec. 27, 2015. Jones was shot and killed by police the previous day along with 19-year-old Quintonio LeGrier. Now killer-cop Rialmo is suing LeGrier family, saying the incident "changed him".

The Sun-Times and Tribune both had reporters at the second day of the trial over lawsuits stemming from Chicago cop Robert Rialmo's shooting of 19-year-old Quintonio LeGrier and his neighbor, 55-year-old Bettie Jones following a report of a domestic dispute. But each paper reported a crucial part of the testimony differently.

The city’s lawyers this month avoided a trial with Jones’ family by reaching a proposed $16 million settlement, but the city made no such deal with LeGrier’s family.

The shootings were part of a long, recent string of CPD killings of unarmed African-Americans and took place just a month after a judge forced Mayor Rahm Emanuel to release footage of a white officer, Jason Van Dyke, shooting black teen Laquan McDonald 16 times. That trial could have great implications for the upcoming mayor's race.

COULD IMPACT MAYOR'S RACE...The trial of three Chicago Police officers charged with filing false reports on the McDonald shooting to cover for Van Dyke has been pushed back to late November, after the election.

Rialmo, who is on paid desk duty, also remains under investigation for a December 2017 bar fight in which he punched two men in the face in an altercation caught on video.

After killing LeGrier and Jones, Rialmo turned around and with support from the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) filed a counter-suit against the LeGrier estate and a cross-claim against the city, alleging he should collect because he was "poorly trained" and that he was psychologically damaged ("changed") by the event.

If you read each paper's coverage, you wonder if they were covering the same trial or if we're reading the same testimony. See if you can tell the difference.

Sun-Times reporter Sam Charles had it this way in this morning's edition:

“On Dec. 26, 2015, you shot Quintonio LeGrier?” Foutris [LeGrier family lawyer] asked.

Yes,” Rialmo responded.

“You shot him multiple times?”

“Yes.”

“You shot him intentionally?”

“Yes. 

Referencing Rialmo’s cross-claim against the city and countersuit filed against the LeGrier estate, Foutris asked:

“You want this jury to give you money for killing Antonio [LeGrier]’s kid?”Rialmo paused, shrugged and said, “Yes."

But here's the way that last exchange was reported in the Tribune by reporter, Dan Kinkel:

 “You think you’re entitled to money for killing Antonio’s kid?” Foutris asked. Rialmo did not answer as opposing lawyers quickly raised objections.

So, did Rialmo answer, "yes", he thought he was entitled to money for killing Antonio LeGrier's son? Or did he not answer the question?

Depends on which paper you read.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

R.I.P. Erica Garner

Erica Garner 

"I'm in This Fight Forever" -- The Root

Lenny Steinhorn, historian at American University 

"1968 was the perfect storm that crystallized the differences in society." -- U.S. News 

 Chicago Mayor Richard Daley at '68 Convention

 When Senator Abraham Ribicoff, of Connecticut, was giving a speech, the mayor of Chicago, Richard Daley, shouted at him, “Fuck you, you Jew son of a bitch, you lousy motherfucker, go home.” -- New Yorker, "Lessons from the Election of 1968"

Arthur Goldstein @teacherarthurG

Every kid can learn, but every kid can learn differently at different times. Some kids need more time than others. Some have learning disabilities. Some don't know English. A full 10% of our kids are homeless, and as long as we continue to ignore that, we won't be serving them no matter how often we give them the meaningless label of "college ready." -- NYC Educator 

Kenzo Shibata (DSA) 

We really do need to envision what organized labor looks like and it's not always going to look like money taken out of your paycheck to pay for representing you at the negotiating table. States and different locals are approaching it differently. But people have to feel like they're together, part of a union...Changing that mindset is going to be key to their survival. -- Hitting Left 

In 1969, you have founding of the Gay Liberation Front, the AIM occupation of Alcatraz, and the formation of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, in 1970 you have the Women's Strike for Equality and the student strike against the Vietnam war. The groundwork for this is 1968

— Dave Zirin (@EdgeofSports) January 1, 2018

Erica Garner. A warrior in the long tradition of black women who see someone they loved ripped away from them and even in their mourning somehow love us enough to stand, to speak, to fight for something better. In your honor, in your name, we can never give up.

— wikipedia brown (@eveewing) December 30, 2017

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Belafonte, 90, tells Carnegie Music Hall audience in Pittsburgh,  “This will be my last public appearance.” 

Harry Belafonte

“We have achieved a lot in my lifetime. Dr King was not about nothing, Eleanor Roosevelt was not about nothing. I think in the final analysis that we shall overcome, because what we did is … we left a harvest that generations to come [will] reap. That they have not yet plowed. That they have not yet harvested.” -- Guardian

Parent at Success Academy Charter

“It’s like a military-style boot camp,” said one of the parents, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. -- N.Y. Daily News

 Prof. Erin Pahlke, Whitman College

...absent sufficient information for parents, choice-based education systems “penalize schools that enroll low-achievers rather than schools that offer poor instruction” and give school leaders a perverse incentive to focus on “making sure your school’s got the best kids” rather than improving school quality. -- The Atlantic

Barbara Ransby, UIC history professor

The Movement for Black Lives is distinctive because it defers to the local wisdom of its members and affiliates, rather than trying to dictate from above. In fact, the local organizers have insisted upon it. -- New York Times

Jimmy Carter

 Asked if Trump was responsible for souring America’s image in the world, he said “he might be escalating it but I think that precedes Trump. The United States has been the dominant character in the whole world and now we’re not any more. And we’re not going to be." -- Guardian  

John McCain

 “One aspect of the (Vietnam) conflict by the way that I will never ever countenance is that we drafted the lowest income level of America and the highest income level found a doctor that would say that they had a bone spur." -- AZ Central

If you think journalists should never challenge statements of generals, I’ve got a great documentary series for you https://t.co/4QuzXyw0OX

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) October 20, 2017

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Muhammad Ali vs. Ernie Terrell in 1967. "What's my name...?"

Dave Zirin

  Government agents had the temerity to ask Muhammad Ali, Jr., where he “got his name from.” In my dreams, he answers that question with a left hook. -- The Nation

William Owens, father of commando killed in Yemen raid

 “I’m sorry; I don’t want to see him... I told them I don’t want to meet the president. I told them I didn’t want to make a scene about it, but my conscience wouldn’t let me talk to him... Why at this time did there have to be this stupid mission when it wasn’t even barely a week into his administration? Why?” -- N.Y. Times

Keith Ellison

 “We don’t have the luxury to walk out of this room divided." -- Washington Post

Bernie Sanders

 Sanders, who had supported Ellison, said in a statement that it was “imperative that Tom understands that the same-old, same-old is not working and that we must open the doors of the party to working people and young people in a way that has never been done before.” -- Washington Post

Jimmy Kimmel

...skewered Donald Trump and the Academy’s record on diversity in his opening monologue for the Oscars, thanking the president and saying: “Remember last year when it seemed like the Oscars was racist?” -- Guardian

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Hawking

Stephen Hawking on Trump

“He is a demagogue, who seems to appeal to the lowest common denominator.” -- The Daily Good

White supremacist leader Matthew Heimbach

 “… Hail, Emperor Trump and hail victory.” -- Think Progress

SNCC veteran Charlie Cobb

“No U.S. president will ever fully embrace their concerns. If you want a president to even be interested in your concerns, however, you have to organize to generate the pressure. That begins with the vote, in my view, although obviously it does not end with voting.” -- Washington Post

Troy LaRaviere

 "I get no satisfaction from Rahm's diminished role nationally," said LaRaviere, a Sanders delegate. "Except for the message that it sends to the people who have been behind him: They're wrong." -- Tribune

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

"Freedom is not something that anybody can be given; freedom is something people take and people are as free as they want to be." -- James Baldwin (No name in the street, 1972)

Pres. Barack Obama

"When people say black lives matter, it does not mean blue lives don't matter. All lives matter," Obama said in Warsaw. "But the big concern is that the data shows that black folks are more vulnerable to these kinds of incidents. This isn’t a matter of us comparing the value of lives, this is recognizing that there is a particular burden is being placed on a group of our fellow citizens and we should care about that. We can’t dismiss it.” -- Washington Post

Michelle Alexander, author of "The New Jim Crow"

This nation was founded on the idea that some lives don’t matter. Freedom and justice for some, not all. That’s the foundation. Yes, progress has been made in some respects, but it hasn’t come easy. There’s an unfinished revolution waiting to be won. -- Something more is required of us now.

Lester Spence, professor of political science at John Hopkins University

"Over the past few decades cities have turned to policing to fulfill two functions: to surveil and discipline black populations hardest hit by economic shifts and to collect revenue in the form of fines… The black men most likely to be left out of the formal economy — who have to engage in various illegal hustles to make ends meet — are far more likely to suffer from police violence than other black men.” -- Salon

Troy LaRaviere reporting from the Dem Platform Committee

The Clinton people just voted down an amendment to ban fracking. The reaction of the amendment supporters is strong--perhaps the strongest negative reaction of the day, along with the earlier reaction against the Clinton vote not to acknowledge the occupation of Palestine. -- Facebook post

Serena Williams

Reporter: "You are one of the greatest women athletes of all time."Serena: "I am one of the greatest athletes of all time." -- Bustle

Trib's Grossman calls for an 'end to protests'. But winds of change keep blowing.

The Tribune's Ron Grossman is imploring Chicago's emergent freedom movement to "halt the protests." He's terrified that even by protesting peacefully, the movement will attract the wrath of Donald Trump who, he argues, "profited" from the UIC protest last week. 

He claims to be a life-long protester himself who...

 "...was thrilled by the sight of long lines of protesters marching on Donald Trump's recent rally at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The crowd's rainbow of colors and creeds was a moving tribute to America at its best — a diversity that Trump attacks whenever he steps before a microphone or television camera to rail against Muslims and Mexicans. 

But, says Grossman, "the time has come to halt the demonstrations."

They became counterproductive once the confrontation between Trump's followers and opponents at the UIC Pavilion turned violent. It doesn't matter who started it. Trump profited from it.

He offers no evidence that the peaceful protests outside, or even the scattered clashes instigated by Trump supporters inside the UIC Pavilion on March 11, benefited Trump in any way. Since then Trump's been forced to cancel nearly all of his campaign rallies and back out of scheduled debates. He's increasingly becoming a political pariah and his violent, racist, anti-immigrant message has failed to gain traction beyond his narrow base of support. 

Trump may well have met his Waterloo at the UIC Pavilion last week.

Should he win the nomination, it's doubtful that he will be able to campaign in any big city in America. Even though he's still winning most of his primaries over a pathetic field of Republican (using the term loosely) competitors, his vote totals are becoming anemic and losing elections to Cruz and Kasich that he should have won. Even his victories have been hollow with more Republicans turning out to vote against him than for. 

On Tuesday, Kim Foxx, our state's attorney candidate in IL, got more votes in Cook County than Trump won in the entire state. 

In the media and in the court of public opinion, Trump and a handful of his most virulent supporters are clearly seen as the instigators of violence. Anti-Trump protesters have shown their committment to non-violence. 

His campaign has shattered what was left of the fractured Republican Party and he has the party leadership scrambling for someone -- anyone -- to replace Trump/Cruz as the party's candidate. 

Trump is even facing criminal investigations in North Carolina and other states, for inciting to riot and now is openly threatening riots against his own party's leaders if they try and oust him in Cleveland. If they can't, polls show him losing badly in November to either Clinton or Sanders. 

Trump is a paper tiger whose violent outbursts are a sign of his weakness, not his strength. His nomination will be a gift to the Democrats.

Since Grossman can offer no evidence of how the Black Lives Matter movement or student-led anti-Trump protests in Chicago helped Trump, he tries to draw some historic parallels while making some absurd claims. He blames protesters for everything from violating "human nature" to causing Nixon's election in '68, to rise of Hitler in Germany. 

A nation is bitterly divided between advocates of change and partisans of traditionalism. The former come to power, or are close to achieving it, and violence ensues. Then a strongman seizes power, blaming the disorders on the party of change for having severed the moorings of older values. That scenario is as old as the French Revolution, as new as 1968.

 Still, the analogy that keeps me up at night is between this election season and Germany in the 1930s. Street violence between the left and the right was the steppingstone that brought Hitler to power.

He even tries to invoke the names of Gandhi and Dr. King to make the case for halting all protests, confusing their commitment to non-violence with passive acceptance of oppression. Both were advocates of protest and direct action against injustice throughout their lives, even in the face of severe repression.

I doubt that Grossman's call to end the protests will resonate with many young activists. I hope not and doubt seriously that many people under the age of 30 even read the Trib or give a damn about what Grossman thinks. If he's truly worried about the promulgation of fascist ideology, he might well look inward at his own paper's editorial board which last May, called for a man with "Mussolini-like powers" to take over Chicago's public school system.

Let's keep marching people. It won't fall by itself.