Something Elected this Way Comes

William “Big Muqtada” Thompson welcomes you to Chicago.

On Steroids.


No one but the stone-hearted or the compassionately impaired could look at millions of people turning out to stand on line in some of the most dangerous real estate in the world to vote and not be inspired. It is inspiring, as is the routine bravery of soldiers and the sacrifice of thier families. No two ways about it, and no one I know wants the people of Iraq to be the continued heirs to violence and tyranny and exploitation. They have earned a little peace and relief from the pervasive dread.

But that is not a gift we can give them. If we could slip it under the door and run away, great, but we uniquely cannot be the bearer of this endowment.

Not Americans generally, and especially not this Administration, and it is both vain and lethally dangerous to continue to refuse to see ourselves as others see us.

Let me be clear – we are never obligated to accept the judgments of others – but it’s deluded to the point of insane to ignoring how we are perceived: understanding how other humans will react to us – personally or culturally -- is all about what their perceptions are, not our wishful fantasies about how they should be.

And no honest person – anywhere on the political spectrum – can look over the overflowing toilet of failure, lies, debt, cronyism, torture and incompetence of the Bush Administration and see anything but trouble ahead, and for exactly the same reason the Administration’s rearview mirror is crowded with rubble and ruin.

The same reason the Administration never, ever, ever looks in the rearview at all, and rips the guts out of anyone who does.

After all, what reckless drunk – having torched his house and shot the family dog in an alky rage – willingly looks back and honestly faces what he has done? Better to mash down harder on the accelerator in any direction but homeward and pretend it never happened, or that someone else was to blame.

(Better still to have enough money and clout to surround yourself with enough nannies and sphincter-bred-dik-dik-birds to spare you the trouble of ever having your own shitheaded mistakes accidently swim into view, or inadvertently come up in conversation.)

Over and over again, everywhere this occupant of Air Force One has touched down, he has, as the saying goes, created a desert and called it peace, because on their way to a Conservative Christian Utopia, the Right keeps tripping over their own dick by mistaking means for ends.

“Wanna have” with “can afford”.

Wish-lists with shopping lists.

And process for outcome.

And “democracy” for magic.

Democracy is a fine system. I wouldn’t want to live under any other arrangement, but it can only create alloys as good or bad as the raw ore that's fed into the smelter.

For generations, democratically elected state and federal American governments sided with slaveholders and condemned millions of African Americans to the agony of life as chattel, with a little torture and murder thrown in for good measure.

As we slowly clawed our way out of our state of Original Sin, state guv after democratically-elected, American state guv sided with the traitors and secessionists and, later, lynchers and Klansmen.

And their legacy is still with us.

Voting doesn’t mean Creationism isn’t bullshit.

Voting doesn’t mean that Bush isn’t a fool, or that Cheney isn’t a liar.

Voting doesn’t make torture moral, or being gay evil: it exposes the people that think it does even more nakedly as the hucksters, fascists and drooling, inbred hicks they are.

Watching the market forces inherent in a democratic and cooperative framework moderate and balance out competing and often corrosive influences in an essentially peaceful and mature society is a marvelous thing to see.

But what happens when democracy is practiced in a gangster culture, where heavily armed factions that have no tradition or respect for law and compromise? Where warlords murder on Monday and kiss babies on Tuesday?

You say you have never heard of such a thing? That a democratic process – even in the face of rampant lawlessness – will cure every evil instead of being co-opted by that evil?

Well, since you’re obviously not from Chicago, let me introduce you to “Big Bill” Thompson. Who was, among other things, a Texas rancher and dirty trickster, before he moved back to Chicago to become the last Republican Mayor of the Windy City in American history.

Here now, a very short course in the Prohibition Era politics of my city via Wikipedia…

William Hale Thompson (born May 14, 1869, Boston, Massachusetts died March 18, 1944) was mayor of Chicago, Illinois from 1915 to 1923 and again from 1927 to 1931.

Known as "Big Bill", Thompson was the last Republican to serve as mayor of Chicago. Thompson was born in Boston, but his family moved to Chicago when he was only nine days old. Instead of college, he traveled in Europe and then took up ranching in Texas and New Mexico, returning to Chicago in 1892 after his father's death.

Early in his mayoral career, Thompson began to amass a war chest to support an eventual run for the Presidency by charging city drivers and inspectors $3 per month. Always a flamboyant campaigner, during the 1923 election, Thompson held a debate between himself and two live rats which he used to portray his opponents. After being defeated in 1923, Thompson organized a "scientific" expedition to search for tree-climbing fish in the South Seas.

In 1927, Al Capone's support allowed Thompson to return to the mayor's office. Pledging to clean up Chicago and remove the crooks, Thompson instead turned his attention to the reformers, who he considered as the real criminals. According to Thompson, at this time the biggest enemy the United States had was King George V of England. Thompson promised his supporters that if they ever met, Thompson would punch the king in the nose. During this final term in office, the "Pineapple Primary" occurred (April 10, 1928), so called because of the bombs used to intimidate politicians. The St. Valentine's Day Massacre also took place while Thompson was mayor.

Growing discontent with Thompson's leadership — particularly in the area of cleaning up Chicago's reputation as the capital of organized crime, he was defeated in 1931 by Democrat Anton Cermak.

After Thompson's defeat, the Chicago Tribune wrote that:

For Chicago Thompson has meant filth, corruption, obscenity, idiocy and bankruptcy.... He has given the city an international reputation for moronic buffoonery, barbaric crime, triumphant hoodlumism, unchecked graft, and a dejected citizenship. He nearly ruined the property and completely destroyed the pride of the city. He made Chicago a byword for the collapse of American civilization. In his attempt to continue this he excelled himself as a liar and defamer of character.[1]

Upon Thompson's death, two safe deposit boxes in his name were discovered to contain nearly $1.5 million in cash.

Now make the fight over a life-or-death global resource like oil, instead of beer.

Then throw in billions of loose and looted cash, and IEDs and Stingers used by battle-hardened soldiers instead of Tommy guns in the hands of button men.

Garnish with violent religion factions, regional meddlers and national pride, and serve white hot over an entire nation.

Mmmm.

Mandatelicious!