Progressives Declare -No Jobs- are Good Enough For South-Side Residents
Dennis Byrne 3 August 2009 No Comment
If there's ever an illustration of how "progressive" elites and organized labor are keeping the very people they supposedly care about locked up on the plantation, it's their consuming opposition to a new Wal-Mart store on the South Side.
The impoverished, unemployed, blacks, seniors, teens—they've all getting a good frigging by the organized campaign by white liberals and powerful unions to block the construction of only the city's second Wal-Mart, at 83rd Street and Stewart Avenue.
The rousing success of the city's first Wal-Mart at 4650 W North Ave. providing jobs and shopping for a West Side neighborhood in great need of them hasn't dissuaded the elites in the least from blocking something that people want and need.
More evidence of progressive, white elitism behind the opposition is provided by a new survey conducted for the retailer that found that 76.7 percent of the 75,347 city residents surveyed want the new store (margin of error of ±0.34 percent). While the poll received a decent amount of publicity, what didn't was the ward-by-ward breakdown of the results.
Not surprisingly, and quite disturbingly, opinion generally reflected income and racial differences among the wards. In other words, support for the new Wal-Mart in North Side wards, which are chockfull of white progressives, is softer than in the South and West Side wards that are predominantly black or poor.
To be sure, majorities in every one of the city's 50 wards supported the new Wal-Mart, which ought to alarm the City Council staunchest opponents. Aldermen usually can be counted on to rubber stamp any building or development proposal (including a Children's Museum in Grant Park) that comes along. Especially if the alderman of the ward in which the project is to be built backs it, as is the case with Ald. Howard Brookins, whose 21st ward would host the new store. That aldermen would so easily toss overboard the public's viewpoint demonstrates just how craven they can become when union campaign contributions are dangled before them.
But it would be a mistake to chalk this up solely to organized labor's stranglehold on the City Council. Progressives, from their North Side enclaves, are full-throated in their opposition to a major job generator—elsewhere in the city. The liberal lakefront wards—44, 46, 48 and 49—all are home to some of the city's strongest opposition. In stark contrast, the heavily black and lower-income wards on the South and West sides record the highest levels of support. Up on the Northwest Side, home to many blue-collar organized workers, support is weakest. What should be of some concern is the relatively weaker support for the new store in Hispanic wards; apparently minorities are not as unified as we are led to believe.
This column will inspire the usual howls of protest from "progressives," who would have us believe that, from their distant perch, they only have the welfare of the oppressed and impoverished in mind. Even though their progressive roosts are blessed with an abundance of jobs and places to shop. They don't have to get on a bus to travel outside the city to work or shop. From their roosts, they are comfortable and self-satisfied in their ideological hatred of Wal-Mart, brushing aside pleas from those most in need of jobs and access to shopping.
Progressives will portray themselves as guardians of those pleading for the Wal-Mart. Progressives say they are only are trying to "protect" those poor people from low wages, insufficient benefits and part-time work. Progressives have decided that for "those people" no jobs are better than jobs that they want and need. Progressives will cite their opposition to Wal-Mart as evidence of their compassion and, well, progressiveness.
It's all too condescending and patronizing. It all sounds too much like racists who once said they know what's "best for our colored." It's beyond shameful.
Progressives Declare -No Jobs- are Good Enough For South-Side Residents | Chicago Daily Observer (4 August 2009)
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