It’s been a while since I wrote about Chicago, and I have to admit that unlike the feeling of schadenfreude that come over me when I contemplate the ruins of once-fine cities like San Francisco, New York, Seattle, Portland and Boston, there is a slight twinge of sadness when I see the Second City also trembling on the edge of the abyss as its civic fabric unravels.
Reader Brad_In_IL however, despite being a near-denizen of same, has no such compunction, and shares this article by the great John Kass:
It is a woman’s scream, a real scream of fear that was randomly captured the other day on a Ring doorbell security camera as she was attacked, pulled to the ground, and robbed by thugs as she walked on a beautiful Sunday afternoon in Chicago’s “mostly peaceful” and leafy Lakeview* neighborhood.
Within that scream of terror hides another, buried sound, part of what the writer Matt Rosenberg, senior editor at wirepoints.org, brilliantly calls “the great unraveling.”
It is the sigh of a once-great but thoroughly exhausted city, a Chicago bone-tired, spent by decades of political corruption, hammered by the brutal application of race card politics in a city of tribes, and in 2020 Lightfoot’s City Hall failed miserably to stop the riots and looting that grew out of the George Floyd protests, and then Lightfoot endorsed the Soros-backed State’s Attorney Kim Foxx for re-election.
It is a city drained by street gang violence and political indifference, where police have been weakened and demoralized, even as private security forces crop up, paid for by those with means who demand protection. In this, Chicago is like Rome.
*Lakeview, for those who may have forgotten, was where I used to live and it was beautiful, safe and home to about four dozen (non-chain) restaurants within three blocks’ walk from our apartment. I loved living there, and left only because of pressing family commitments.
You should read the whole of Kass’s brilliantly-written article, because it is depressingly similar to the horror shows of America’s other metropolises, and shares many of the governmental sins that are endemic to any place run by today’s Democrats.
I say “today’s Democrats” because no matter his faults, I absolutely cannot imagine that former Mayor Richard M. Daley would have tolerated today’s carnage — and his father, Richard J. Daley (of ’68 Democrat Convention fame) would have reacted even more violently.
Oh well… sic transit and all that.
The federal consent decree that Obama imposed on the Chicago Police Department was the real start of it. It used to be that we weren’t supposed to notice the race of people committing most of the crime. Now the PD is HAS to notice and not arrest too many of them because it could only be because of discrimination.
Kim Fox and her types are just the icing on the cake.
I keep wondering when vigilantism starts and masked neighbors simply beat those guys to death or blast them with shotguns ( no ballistics). All the men inclined to do probably left long ago like Kim.
If the GOP is smart…. HAHAHAHHAHAHAHA!!! – damn, I kill me… they’ll runs ads like the one embedded in the piece in every blue city leading into November and 2024. In case you missed it, here are the non-detainable offenses in Illinois as of 1/1/23: Aggravated battery, aggravated dui, aggravated fleeing, arson, burglary, drug induced homicide, intimidation, kidnapping, robbery, 2nd degree murder, intimidating a public official.
Get busted for any of those, & you’re released so long as you pinkie swear that you’ll show up for your court date. Plus wear an ankle bracelet. Here’s what makes the ankle bracelet so… EFFECTIVE: authorities are not allowed to move on anyone who’s violated the tether until 48 hours after the violation. More than enough time to drive to either coast & commit all of the aforementioned non detainable crimes along the way. Fucking genius!
that would be a great advertisement to run. Using Democrat’s words and policies would be a great idea to illustrate their failures.
JQ
My people were in Chicago before there was a Chicago … at the time of the Blackhawk wars. They settled it and worked there for 150 years, in the stockyards, the railroads, and the steel mills. There were also a few doctors, an engineer or two, and even a judge. There are streets named after some of them. Dozens of these people are buried on the South side in places I can’t visit without an armored column for company. My grandfather was the stereotypical “last white man” in his neighborhood (79th and Stony Island Ave.), which is where little Shelly Robinson grew up. Am I pissed about Chicago? You bet, every time I fill out a 4473 and have to specify my birthplace. Aside from that, I try not to think about it.
My great aunt and uncle lived and worked in Chicago from 1930 to 1966 and lived in a gorgeous brownstone in the Lincoln Park neighborhood. Somewhere north of 4,800 square feet on three floors with a rooftop garden. My great uncle worked first in radio and then tv for several stations in Chicago, most notably with Hugh Downs. My great aunt was a interior designer and furniture buyer for some of the high end stores in the city. I remember little of the house, except that it was huge and had a 8-foot wide rose window in the staircase between the 1st and 2nd floor. If memory serves, they sold it in 1966 for $90K, and moved to Enid, OK to open a tavern.
My great aunt never got over the trauma of leaving Chicago for Oklahoma. The tavern went broke in a couple of years and my great uncle, who was by then more obviously crazy, disappeared off the face of the earth. My great aunt moved back to Chicago and at the age of 68, went to work at Marshall Field’s and worked there in the drapery department until her death.
Chicago (Great Lakes, more accurately) was my first permanent duty station in the Navy. I lasted 2 winters and then took a swap to Key West. I visit Chicago every couple of years to see old friends, but the town has lost it’s charm, at least to me. There are some great places to visit, but you need security to get there and back.
I find that I can still visit questionable areas of the city near where I was raised if I go in the late morning or early afternoon. By dinner time I am out of those areas and long gone. Few of those areas hold anything for me anymore.
I think it was this time last year I returned to my old neighborhood and most of the houses from my childhood have been torn down. I looked for my address and as I went up the block, the neighbor’s houses were replaced with monstrosities. I don’t recall finding my house because the new homes were disorienting and I think I passed by before realizing I had missed the location of my childhood home. All the neighbors I knew have long since moved out of the area.
JQ
I lived in Chicago from 1992 to 1999, landing first in Humbolt Park (yeah, I know), and then spending the rest of the time closer to the lake.
There’s a lot that was great about Chicago.
But it was corrupt as f*k even then, and I disagree with Kim–I think the *old* Mayor Daley wouldn’t have tolerated this crap, but his idiot son was part of the problem.
Kim,
I heard late last night .. the group which put up the “scream” anti-Pritzker commercial has been pulled because it was too controversial. Maybe, maybe not. You & Your Readers can decide for themselves.
William O .. your assertion that “idiot son” was part of the problem .. you may be onto something with that statement.
Uncle Kenny – some of “my people” got to greater Chicago between 1880 and 1920 – from both sides of my family tree. I hailed from Skokie .. then our family moved out of state in late 1972. I finally returned to Lake County, IL about seven (7) yrs ago … I’ll never live in Chicago nor Cook County, and upon retirement, well, I doubt I’ll be residing anywhere in “The Land of Lincoln” … it’s all pretty sad .. because a good deal of the nonsense could have been prevented.