Spinnin' Us and Them

Once again it’s time to clear the air and blow away the spinners and their paranoid myths. There are some entities who have labeled me, derided me, have gone to absurd lengths to discourage, discredit or extricate me. They have their reasons, as do I to expose their web. Since many don’t know my reasons or reasoning, they create their false illusions.

Here’s my reality.

North of Howard is a neighborhood. Beneath that label are the underlying forces, dastardly alliances, all interlocking for one goal … to make one small area a concentration of poverty. What they haven’t accomplished is the creation a peaceful concentration of poverty. So far they’ve created a miserable, unmanageable mess they can’t control.

While they speak with religious overtones of harmony, peace and all that 60’s stuff, gangs roam the streets dealing drugs, shooting one another. Women and men are abusing one another and their children. Many children learn violence subliminally before they learn to speak or walk. Within a few years, these children are killing one another. That’s a fact few can deny. But they’re the first to jump on the bandwagon and yell ‘peace’. They’re the first to pray and then point fingers. There isn’t really a feasible plan to accomplish peace North of Howard because there’s no balance here.

Some place the accountability on the alderman and the police. Others place the burden on absentee landlords, negligent property owners and managers of subsidized buildings. Let me toss in the original dastardly alliance that 30 years ago declared this pocket to be the future home of the ‘poorest of the poor and the outcasts of society’…and I hold them ALL accountable and responsible. The charities and nonprofits are right up there with Joe, Orr, CPD, HUD, IDHA, AIMCO, Higginson and Higgenbottom, and Jay Johnson. I apologize if I’ve omitted any other offenders. Filter it from top to bottom or bottom to top, they all come out guilty in my calculations.

I now own a home. Big deal. Other than a 1977 dying Ford Mustang, this home is my first investment. Why? Because I did. Before that I resided in a world that was similar to the spin here. It was a world of ‘us and them’. As a renter, I was labeled as one of ‘them’. I can identify with the good Northpoint and East Lake Management tenants. Some apartments I’ve had in Chicago left much to be desired. Even in decent apartments I dealt with power tripping landlords who collected the rent and neglected the repairs. I too dealt with fools who thought they could enter in my space when I wasn’t home without the 24 hour notice. I dealt with resident landlords who hooked up their gas and/or electricity to the tenants meters so they could slide. In one of my first apartments, the freezer door was a piece of plywood! Had it functioned properly, I planned to freeze all the mice I caught and give them to the slumlord. So spin that.

Low income or high income, everything revolves around power and money. The spin here is away from that truth, so let’s get grounded for a moment.

Let’s admit our psychodrama, our undeniable failings. Rather than scatter the subsidized housing throughout the ward, certain groups had little difficulty persuading the alderman to enable AIMCO to re-establish themselves here until 2013. Was there any real community input or vote? It was a done deal announcement. Now we all suffer through this poorly planned ideology. While some subsidized tenants are knowledgeable, vocal and demand their rights, the spinners are telling those less well-informed tenants that this blogger is trying to banish them all!

Get it straight, I ain’t. I want those who created this mess to clean it up and balance it. I want insurance that human rights (tenants and owners) are respected and enforced. Insisting on more low-income housing, insisting in maintaining the same status quo is far from balanced. It’s downright illogical, insane and immoral. For the alderman and the economic developers to even discuss the future of this area, they need to reign in those who are abusing the system for gain and hold them accountable to the community. By ignoring or avoiding that process, humans are used as the weapons in the spinning of the ‘us and them’ game.

The game is over.

Joe is accountable to ‘us and them’ in all matters that affect our lives. The social service agencies are accountable to provide services that will transition people to the next level, not merely maintain or ‘contain them’. The current maintenance programs are contributors to the profit of some and the debit of others. Philanthropists should thoroughly investigate the inner dynamics of these alliances before unknowingly investing to further divide this community into ‘us and them’. The federally funded buildings are accountable to their tenants, to the community, to the police, and ultimately to the alderman. The circle is complete.

Spin this:

It angers me to hear the way ‘us and them’ are spoken to. The power players speak to the air behind ‘us’ as though we are voiceless, mindless cardboard cut outs. It’s as though we’re props in their poorly written, badly directed play. These spinners are in for a very rude awakening when all is said and done.

The game is over.

"Your conscience awakes and you see your mistakes ...
And you wish someone would buy your confession ...
The days miss their mark and the night gets so dark ...
And some kind of "message" comes through to you ...
Some kind of "message" shoots through -- ...
And it says to you...
There is no Eden or Heavenly Gates ...
That you're gonna make it to one day ...
But all of the answers you seek can be found...
In the dreams that you dream... On the way ..."

Dan Fogelberg - Part Of The Plan