Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On

By Charlie Barber
Staff Writer

“Thank you, President Obama, for taking a bunch of rednecks’ suggestion and making it happen.” -Tony Kennon, Mayor, Orange Beach, Ala. [Bismarck Tribune, 6/17/10]

“BP’s reported willingness to go along with the White House’s new fund suggests that the Obama Administration is hard at work exerting its brand of Chicago-style shakedown politics.”  -Republican Study Group (112 Republican House Members) [Robert Creamer, Huffpost, 6/20/10]

It was a shame to read [msnbc, 6/17/10] that Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, was backing away from his use of the term “shakedown” to describe how President Obama managed to get BP to volunteer to use $20 billion of their own money to help clean up the mess caused in the Gulf of Mexico by its Deepwater Horizon drilling platform.

If any group deserves to be shaken down by the Chief Executive of a sovereign nation, it’s a big international oil company.

However, Rep. Barton, and his 111 Republican colleagues in the House of Representatives, do not seem to have backed away from their contention that the shakedown in question was a “Chicago-style” shakedown.

What a relief!

Anyone who engaged in politics at the precinct level in Chicago treasures the mythology that Chicago is somehow more corrupt than other parts of this nation, like Texas, Louisiana, New York, or New Jersey. Both friends and foes of the “machine” in Cook County like to think that Chicago is at least “first city” in something.

What separates Chicago corruption from corruption in other parts of the country like North Dakota, of course, is that Chicagoans don’t sweep it under the rug. They wash their dirty linen in public,...the corrupt, as well as those who oppose corruption. It is part of the charm of “Sweet Home Chicago.”

Where else would Rod Blagojevich have a career in the entertainment industry, while undergoing his trials for public corruption?

Joe Barton and his follow House Republicans have been shilling for unregulated big oil their entire careers. They obviously tried to cover their butts and attack Barack Obama at the same time, by invoking “Chicago shakedown corruption.” It didn’t work. Barton & Co. were quickly told by bigger big oil shills in the Republican Party to shut their collective traps.

It seems BP didn’t see the chump change of $20 billion, relatively speaking, as a shakedown at all, but as a chance to redeem its tattered image and ravaged bottom line in the market place. BP’s recent TV ads, and reports of an even larger commitment of dollars, prove this to anyone with an ounce of political sense. At any rate, professional politicians know very well that the term “shakedown” is archaic. Its up-to-date term is “political fund-raiser.”

As usual, the mainstream media misses these finer points of political terminology. So I called my friend Big Tony, from Chicago, who shared valuable insights about the loss of the Olympics last year when the media mistakenly marked that as a minus for Chicago, rather than a plus.

Tony and I were colleagues in one of the most corrupt environments in this country as far as egos are concerned: fellow professors at a public university. We both fought corruption at our university as well as in Chicago. But because Tony grew up in the city, and I in suburban Evanston, he knew the enemy better than I did. He, and a number of my Chicago-bred students, taught me how to “live clean, but think dirty,” and thus read the minds of our narrow minded, self-centered adversaries in the university faculty and administration, in state and local government, and in the corporate world in Chicago’s Loop.

In Chicago, as well as in North Dakota, a professor can lose his or her job, regardless of their professional achievements, if they are personally disliked by powerful people without real accountability, like a department chair or a clique of jealous colleagues. In North Dakota, which is a “right to work for slave wages” state, there is little recourse for a targeted professor, except to hunker down, suck up, or find some higher-up in the administration who hates their chair more than they dislike or disdain the aggrieved and untenured professor. In Illinois, however, they have these wonderful things called labor unions, [I am a lifelong member of Local 4100, AFT] who, despite FOX News and Republican Party propaganda, do not spend most of their time scheming up strikes, but rather fighting for due process of law and a living wage for their members.

The Illinois Legislature is far more sympathetic and civilized in labor relations than the North Dakota Legislature, which seems only to be soft-hearted toward coal companies and wife-beaters within the Republican caucus. And the dispatch with which Illinois impeached and convicted Governor Blagojevich was impressive.

Fortunately, the image of “Chicago shakedowns” protects Illinois politicians from being viewed as bleeding hearts for the many things they do that actually benefit their constituents. Chicago is “the city that works,” because, despite all the corruption, there is still enough caring for everyday folks among the powerful in the corporate, as well as the political and professional worlds.

I just hope the New York Times doesn’t find out about this. I’ll have far less to write about. Big Tony assures me that they never will. The East and West Coasts can’t stand to admit that the Midwest is ahead of them in anything.

What President Obama did to BP was not a “shakedown,” but it was very “Chicago,” because he learned to “live clean and think dirty,” just like Big Tony. That is something rednecks like me [on my mother’s side] and Mayor Kennon can appreciate.

Don’t be surprised if Barack Obama and Joe Biden soon start showing up at NASCAR events in the Gulf area—by invitation!

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