Sanders' third political hero a gem

Yesterday, Bernie Sanders said something quite extraordinary when asked who his political heroes were on becoming politically active in the early 1960's. He named Martin Luther King and FDR, two known to everyone. His third choice? Eugene V. Debs. As a fellow unreconstructed 1960's liberal, I'm quite familiar with Debs; but I would bet not one H.S. senior in a hundred recognizes him. That shames American education because Debs is a hero and role model for anyone who values real American exceptionalism of peace, freedom and economic justice.

Born in Terre Haute, IN in 1855, Debs labored in a variety of dirty, dangerous railroad jobs, eventually working himself into leadership positions of early railroad unions. Debs organized one of the first industrial unions for unskilled workers in the United States, the American Railway Union (ARU). The Union successfully struck the Great Northern Railway in April 1894, winning most of its demands. That same year his ARU backed the strike against George Pullman's Pullman Palace Car Company after Pullman cut wages 28% but not a nickel of the rents in Pullman's heretofore idyllic company town. President Cleveland busted the strike with the Army, resulting in 30 dead workers and handing Debs a six month sentence for violating a strike breaking injunction. In jail Debs was converted to socialism, going on the found the Social Democratic Party of the United States and later, the International Workers of the World (Wobbles).

Debs ran for President in as a socialist in 1904, 1908, 1912 and 1920, the last time from a federal prison for speaking out against WWI which he described as merely a boon to capitalism. He garnered 919,000 votes sitting in the slammer, the most ever for a socialist candidate. His health declining precipitously, President Wilson, who despised Debs for opposing the senseless war he championed, declined pleas for his release, essentially saying 'let him rot'. Wilson's successor Warren Harding, a substantially more descent human being, not only released Debs, he welcomed to a White House visit.

Debs never recovered his health, dying in an Elmhurst, IL sanitarium in 1926. Watching Bernie stump for economic justice and 15 bucks an hour for the working impoverished, I detect the heart and soul of Eugene V. Debs speaking to us from a century ago. The players change; the causes remain the same.

Breen World War I analogy should be 'Make Illinois safe for oligarchy'

Breen World War I analogy should be 'Make Illinois safe for oligarchy'

My state rep Peter Breen sure likes to write. He fires off lengthy weekly emails he calls 'editorials', about state governance. Alas, they're long on words; short on substance. Never will Breen admit that Gov. Bruce Rauner sabotaged the annual budget process by injecting non-budgetary pre-conditions before even negotiating a budget, leading to the current year long stalemate. Never will Breen acknowledge this unprecedented tactic has drastically degraded the lives of countless thousands of Illinoisans. Students drop out of college due to educational assistance cuts.State employees are being laid off for lack of budgetary authority to keep them employed. State vendors and service providers cling to life if not bankrupted from being stiffed for payment they're owed. The needy suffer most; losing the critical state lifeline that has never before been withheld from them. Never will Breen mention the report of the non-partisan Civic Federation which condemns Rauner's creative budgetary stalemate which is causing a spike in Illinois payables to $9 billion from the reduction to $5.2 billion achieved under Gov. Quinn (from his high of 8.2 billion). The Federation also chastises Rauner's accounting tricks that will defer $748 million in pension obligations to an already bloated pension deficit.

Breen likens current Illinois governance to WW I trench warfare, promising to stay "in the trenches" till the opposition agrees to bust state unions, cut state employees salaries, accept utterly misnamed 'right to work' provisions, and make permanent cuts to the social safety net. Breen got the war right but not the analogy. To paraphrase wartime president Woodrow Wilson, Breen is simply fighting to to keep Rauner's Illinois "safe for oligarchy".

Rauner should turn 'Turnaround' Agenda into 'Turn On' Agneda

The Illinois Medical Marijuana Advisory Board again blasted Gov. Bruce Rauner for his heartlessness in refusing to add their 12 recommendations for medical marijuana use to the Illinois Medical Marijuana program. Seven of those conditions involve pain: chronic pain syndrome, trauma induced chronic pain, intractable pain, chronic post operative pain, migraine, IBS and diabetes. Farah Zala Morales, who works at a medical marijuana dispensary, told the Board her 12-year-old daughter, who suffers from Type 1 diabetes, has used marijuana to reduce her need for painful injections as well as stabilize her blood sugar. Unlike Rauner, who is an amateur at governing Illinois, the Illinois Medical Marijuana Advisory Board is composed of professionals, doctors and nurses, as well as patients sentenced to continued suffering under Rauner's restrictions. If they really wanted to make a point, the Board should have added an eighth pain recommendation: Rauner turnaround pain syndrome.

What's in a name? Shame, racism, pedophilia and much more

There sure is a lot of name expunging from public buildings and institutions these days. Yale students are protesting to rename Yale's John C. Calhoun's Residential College to someone a tad less offensive than the 19th century Senator and Vice President whose ideological support for Southern slave domination helped inspire the Civil War. All over the South, folks are seeking to replace the names of offensive Southern white supremacists such as KKK founder Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest from highways and buildings. Former Speaker Denny Hastert's portrait was quietly removed from the hallway adjoining the House chamber by incoming new House Speaker Paul Ryan based on the vague "it was time to rotate in a different portrait." And right here in Chicagoland, super Evangelical Wheaton College changed the name of the 'J. Dennis Hastert Center for Economics, Government, and Public Policy to the 'Wheaton College Center for Economics, Government, and Public Policy,' I can still remember back in '63-'64 when so many highways, schools, airports, streets and entities were quickly named or renamed for our slain president, we may as well called America the United States of Kennedy. Somehow naming anything after a novice leader who launched criminal regime change against a dot on the map, then spent his remaining 1,000 presidential days trying to whack its leader because of his coup's failure, is totally inappropriate. I'm reminded about this naming nonsense couple of times a week when I steer my car onto the Ronald Reagan Memorial Highway (formerly I-88) just 2 miles from my house. It's bad enough the Gipper got tens of thousands killed in Latin America fighting Communist phantoms, and began the 35 year long destruction of the Middle Class. But being forced to drive on his pavement adds roadway salt to the political wounds.

How 'bout ending this foolish and infantile naming practice for men and women who all possess feet of clay. Short of that, let's have a ten year cooling off period after the dude or gal dies and appoint a 'Devil's Advocate' to dig up the alternate person, like Speaker Denny's, locked away from public view.