CHICAGO, July 27, 2012 — Chicago is a city of fifty individual fiefdoms called wards. Elected aldermen supposedly represent the people in each ward.
In reality they rule their wards with impunity.
They do not care what the people want or need. They only care who fills their campaign coffers, puts their friends and family members on public and private payrolls, and help get out the vote for them and their cronies.
Chicago aldermen have a rare and unique privilege. They can approve or deny zoning, zoning changes, zoning variances, and other land use in their wards just because they can.
In 2009 the Congress Hotel applied for a zoning variance. Union workers had been striking the hotel for six years. (The strike is currently in its ninth year).
The Congress Hotel is located in Chicago’s Second Ward, the realm of Alderman Robert Fioretti. Alderman Fioretti is strongly pro-labor. Unions lavish his campaign coffers with large amounts of cold hard cash and supply masses of thugs to get out the vote for him.
Fioretti made it known he was denying the hotel’s request for a zoning variance purely over the hotel’s refusal to settle the strike, even though the Zoning Board approved it.
It does not matter what the Zoning Board, the mayor, or the majority of other aldermen want, vote for, or sign off on. It does not matter what the ward residents or businesses need or want.
The owners of the Congress Hotel sued in federal court. The court ruled in their favor. The federal judge ruled that zoning and land use issues must stand or fall on their own merits not the whim of any one alderman.
Now First Ward Alderman Proco Joe Moreno is threatening to abuse his aldermanic privilege to keep Chick-fil-A out of his fiefdom. He does not agree with the company CEO’s religious beliefs regarding traditional marriage. He does not like organizations the privately held company donates its money to.
He especially does not like the CEO of the company publicly expressing his religious beliefs.
It does not matter to Proco Joe Moreno that Chick-fil-A discriminates against no one in hiring or service and never has.
According to Moreno, and others of his ilk, owners of companies are not allowed to publicly express beliefs contrary to the arbitrary, capricious, and waggish beliefs of scoundrel politicians.
Chick-fil-A has no right to do business in their wards. That is that. Or is it that?
Mayor Rahm Emanuel supports Alderman Moreno stating that he does not feel Chick-fil-A shares Chicago’s values, whatever those are.
The very same day the mayor lauded and heaped praise on Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakahn for his attempts to prevent violence in Chicago neighborhoods.
Minister Farrakahn is virulently and openly anti-Semitic and anti-gay. He regularly expresses his hatred towards Jews and gays. Louis Farrakahn is a lifelong racist and regularly expresses his racist views.
Are those shared Chicago values?
Can you spell h-y-p-o-c-r-i-s-y?
Alderman Moreno in a blaze of sophomoric reasoning, dared Chick-fil-A to sue and in the next breath stated the owners would be better off changing their attitude, positions, values, ethics, and morays.
Incredulously, he demands they should apologize for holding and expressing religious beliefs and accept whatever the LGBT community wants.
Alderman Moreno just wants them to pony up big bucks for his political war chest and hire the people he orders them to. All this brou-ha-ha is a typical Chicago shakedown. It is extortion and intimidation. It is pay to play politics. It is criminal.
In order to protect Chicago values, Mayor Emanuel and the aldermen better go through each and every business in Chicago to determine which ones are owned and operated by Muslims. Muslims are openly vitriolic in their hatred of homosexuality and they are pro-life.
The city should move to shut down each and everyone of those businesses because they do not share the values of Chicago. They should refuse to approve any and all new licenses, permits, and zoning for Muslim owned businesses or mosques. All mosques and Muslim organizations should be banned from Chicago.
The city of values should move to shutter all the Evangelical Christian churches and others like them along with businesses owned by their adherents. Their traditional marriage and pro-life stances do not share Chicago values.
All Bibles and Qurans should be confiscated and burned. Those evil books do not share Chicago values.
The city should move in on all Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox Jewish temples and organizations in Chicago. Shut them all down. Burn their Torahs. Their businesses should be shuttered. They are not tolerant to gays. They do not share Chicago values.
Catholic Churches and businesses owned by Catholics should be shut down for their stances on homosexuality and abortion. The Archdiocese should be forced to vacate their Chicago headquarters. All their schools should be closed. They do not share the values of Chicago. Clergy should be forbidden to wear clerical garb. They do not share Chicago values.
All religious groups, sects, and organizations that consider homosexuality immoral or sinful should be totally banned from Chicago. No one who belongs to one of these religious groups should be allowed on the public payroll or to run for elected office, regardless if their personal beliefs differ from religious teachings.
The mayor and the aldermen should pass ordinances to confiscate all the property of churches, schools, businesses, and organizations that do not share Chicago values. They should pass ordinances banning people from publicly expressing their religious beliefs if those beliefs run contrary to Chicago values.
Media should be banned from reporting or editorializing on anything that runs counter to the shared values of Chicago. Internet sites that do not share Chicago values should be blocked within the city limits.
People who do not share Chicago values should be forced to wear special markings on their clothing so they can be identified and held up to ridicule.
There is a very successful precedent for all of this. There was a certain power-centric Austrian paperhanger very similar to Chicago politicians. Hitler was deeply concerned about the shared values of the German people.
Minister Louis Farrakahn, a notorious racist, raging anti-Semite and flaming homosexual hater shares Chicago values.
Chick-fil-A, a values oriented company operated with honesty, integrity, and honor does not.
Chicagoans should start questioning their values, if they ever had any.
Peter V. Bella is a retired Chicago Police Officer, freelance journalist and photojournalist, cook, and raconteur. He likes to be the irreverent sharp stick that pokes, prods, and annoys. His opinions are his and his alone. Mr. Bella is a member of the National Press Photographers Association and the Society for Professional Journalists.
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