The Last Armbender

(Testing whether or not good art can come from bad movies; click pic for larger)

The City is broke: gummint, schools, colleges, all of it.

The dream of a 2016 Olympics -- and the last great chance to replenish its coffers on someone else's dime and keep the game of borrow, swap, refinance and spend going -- is long dead.

More layoffs are coming. Which will be followed by more layoffs. After which will come more layoffs.

Next year, expect services to plunge, more departments to be privatized and/or consolidated, and what remains of the City workforce to effectively be put onto 4-day weeks.

And above it all floats Richard M. Daley, by far the most powerful man in Chicago who has run the city as an absolute monarch for 21 years.

Based on the last few speeches I have heard him make, if he runs again (and I think it likely) he will run -- believe it or not -- as a Man of Da People. A Man who unnerstanz why dem tea partiers or dem coffee drinkers (insert hahaha ) or dem Coca Cola drinkers (insert anudder hahaha ) or dem lemonade drinkers (insert anudder hahaha, 'cause he always pushes the stupid joke way too far) are so mad.

It dat damn gummint!

Whedder it be in Washington D.C. or down in Springfield, dat damn irresponsible gummint wit dere Unfunded Mandates. You know, dey tell us to do dis and dat, but dey never give us enough money ta do it wit!

So I can udderstand why Da People are so mad at dat damn irresponsible gummint!

This is a man who leads one of the most powerful political dynasties and machines in the Western world. Who has positively barnacled local, state and federal governments, foundations, civic institutions, think tanks and key corporations with his former commissioners, deputies and chiefs of staff. Who positively fetishizes the imaginary Virtues of the Private Sector despite the fact that during his entire adult life he has never worked anywhere else but at a gummint job, and the fact that he already gets away with running his Machine exactly like the CEO of a modern corporation. Who has created an entire power apparatus designed to eliminate any limits to his imperial reach, and to locate and co-opt (or marginalize) any possible competition.

This is a man who, if runs again is going to run -- believe it or not -- as a Populist Outsider.

And -- believe it or not -- it will work.