Rauner: I Told You I'd Make Them All Nuts!

The Forced Psychosis of Being Homeless

I enjoy being around positive and community-minded people.

I spent this morning and the better part of the afternoon with many of them in a helpful seminar listening to Mr. Donald Dahlheimer from Elmhurst, a licensed specialist in the identification and treatment of mental health issues.  We were all there because we are volunteers and site mangers for the homeless in the northern tier of South Suburban PADS – an organization devoted to helping those in need of emergency shelter during the colder months.  

As you might have experienced, the colder months have broken down the front door quickly. And we’re busy.  Our shelter reached well over its occupancy in the first two hours of opening this last Thursday.  It’s a blessing that we have another “sister” church to send our guests to after dinner. 

In our current state budget morass, the homeless are just one group of the many marginalized and impoverished who stand as serviceable pawns for the drawn-out battle between an intractable Governor Rauner and his nemesis Michael Madigan.  When will their suffering call forth enough pressure by the comfortable in our state to make one of the two uncomfortable enough to budge?

No one has blinked yet. 

And, if Thursday night’s numbers are indicative of what’s about to come, this winter will be harsh indeed. 

The Illinois Department of Family Services estimates that about 48,000 people are served by state funded shelters each year. 

Public schools in Illinois saw a 7.7% increase in the number of homeless students in the last measurement – the 2013-14 school year.  That number was over 59,000 students in our state who were homeless.  20,000 of these students are in Chicago. 

While we shoot, let's put the poor in-between.

Mr. Dahlheimer (sorry about the digression) was there to help us work with the many of our guests who arrive in a mentally agitated state or with severe mental health issues.  How do you interact to provide safety for someone who is in a heated conversation with a non-entity? 

The presentation was clinically informative, but wasn’t nor would any program ever be able to provide the outline of reacting to a specific situation.  On the other hand, I found his PowerPoint’s description on “Common Symptoms When Psychosis Is Developing” disquieting.  

Mr. Dalheimer’s list of “Changes in thinking and perceptions” for those entering a psychotic period was exactly what we should expect from any person becoming or enduring homelessness.

·      Sense of alteration of self, others, or the outside world (e.g., feeling that the self or others have changed or are acting different in some way)  

·      Social isolation or withdrawal

·      Sleep disturbances

·      Reduced ability to carry out work or social roles

·      Odd ideas

·      Difficulties with concentration or attention

·      Unusual perceptual experiences (e.g., reductions in or greater intensity of smell, sound, or color)

I watch the homeless walk among us during the day, and I witness the looks and comments they receive.  This is not a sense of alteration; it is an accurate comprehension of alienation.

I see the results of a month or more on the street – the need to become loud, to drop social convention for protection, the acquisition of distrust, the necessary loss of personal interactions.

I perceive the wariness of loss of possessions or meds, the indignity of sleeping next to an unknown stranger only a foot away, the unnerving soft padding of people moving about all night for a variety of reasons.

I observe the difficulty of a battered parent with five children trying to organize their studies and ready them for bed in a strange and unusual environment filled with strangers.

I fathom their schemes for quick and sudden relief from the present, sometimes fantasy or, worse, sometimes the lotto – or maybe substance misuse. 

I often excuse their failure to comprehend the byzantine procedures of the system that has granted them kindness momentarily but demands reintegration as well as paperwork in return.

In my experience, being homeless in Illinois is not dissimilar from experiencing a “Developing Psychosis.”

Give me what I want or they get it.

According to Social Justice News Chicago, many programs to assist the homeless, especially the children, will start shutting down if the budget impasse continues.  Worse, “Once the shut down, even if funding is restored some of them might not be able to just reopen, which means that the infrastructure for hoping the homeless will be lost,” according to Julie Dworkin, the policy director at the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless.

( http://sjnnchicago.org/homeless-youth-advocates-ask-rauner-to-put-human-lives-before-revenue/)

Tell him to present a budget.  Call the Governor’s Office please:  217-782-0244

Bruce Rauner & The SneakAround Agenda

Bruce Rauner: The SneakAround Agenda

In Oak Forest, Illinois, this morning, torrential cloudbursts and flash floods pounded over 200 picketers waiting for a chance to give Governor Bruce Rauner a piece of their collective minds.  Many wore soaked and clinging t-shirts proclaiming their affiliation with various union groups – electricians, pipefitters, drivers, and even CTU union representatives.  Others held umbrellas or walked about in neon raincoats used when on the job.  The mood was determined but patient. 

Rauner was scheduled to appear before the Chamber of Commerce for the Orland, Illinois, area at Gaelic Park in Oak Forest to preside over a $30/person luncheon plate and a chance to hear the stumping Governor promote his “TurnAround Agenda.” 

Its pretty much the same message that saw little interest and some blowback by union workers earlier this spring, but the Governor has added a cast of insidious characters in his new marketing campaign:  Speaker Madigan and Senate Leader Cullerton.  Rauner’s hoping for some traction with his tale this time.

In case he doesn’t get any, once again, he will launch what worked for him last time: an unending series of television commercials to make us all hate “the machine.”  I wonder if Diana will be back to soften up the arrogance we often see in the effendi. Hope so.

An old blue and white bus struggled to find parking in the extra lot opened for the mushrooming crowds.  Children and teachers from Park Lawn, a Southland center for Individuals with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, warily stepped from the bus, all trying to stay under the safety of two very large umbrellas.  Having shuffled to the safety of the canopied front entrance, they awaited the Governor’s arrival with signs decrying their uncomfortable and inhumane situation – being caught between a political game of chicken between the plutocracy and the politically puissant. 

You might recall Rauner’s earlier budgets which called for the slashing of $millions normally provided for those with disabilities like autism and epilepsy.  No wonder the Park Lawn kids were there. 

Only three days ago, the Governor threatened he will also slash funding for the bus they came on. 

The children – some of them clearly no longer children – held signs and posters for the Governor.  Despite a bit unnerved by the downpours, the students of Park Lawn seemed more excited to be there and about to meet someone important.  “We Matter,” spelled one sign – flourishing with sparkly glitter and colors.  “Remember us,” pleaded another.

The luncheon was to begin at 11:30, but the rain poured from before 11:00 and past noon, with still no sign of the Governor’s entourage.  Police traveling through the crowds in SUV’s kept the crowds aware of the Governor’s timeline for arrival. 

Meanwhile, those attending the affair came dressed to the nines, well coiffed, and tastefully painted.  They trotted briskly from opened automobile doors to get in the front, past the children from Park Lawn.

One obviously insulted working class watched the people arriving, crossed his tattooed arms and snorted, “I suppose this is Rauner’s idea of the Middle Class.  What a joke.”

“Kill off the unions, take away the worker’s rights and protections on the job, slide past safety standards, and make each village its own little fiefdom.  It’s a TurnBack Agenda.”

Finally, the police informed the picket leaders that Rauner was arriving in another five minutes.  “Do you think he’s being fashionably late?  Or does he care about his wealthy constituency as little as he cares for the Middle Class,” suggested one of the CTU Union representatives.

“He’s trying to cut through the side parking lot to avoid having to approach the entry,” warned one of the leadership.  “Quick, let’s meet him as he must walk through the side lot to the front (where the children of Park Lawn had left nearly half an hour earlier).  Nearly 200 members of the Middle Class began a quick walk up to the front, but Rauner had driven behind the building to use a back door patio entrance to get in to his waiting crowds. 

“A Man of the People…”  yelled one frustrated man.

“The baddest enemy you could ever have is something of a coward,” suggested one other.

TurnAround Agenda?  Heck, he’s just shown us his real plan, just like in Springfield, the SneakAround agenda.”

SneakAround to the back door.

King Trickle Down Rauner

King “Trickle Down” Rauner and the New Feudalism

“Rock-a-bye baby, in the treetop


When the wind blows, the cradle will rock


When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall


And down will come baby, cradle and all”

My mother used to sing lullabies to me when I was just a wee lad, but she never really took much time to explain them.  After all, I was drowsy, in all likelihood she was busy, and neither of us actually understood the sinister political messages of these little back yard commercials of the post-medieval period.  No Television, no Twitter, no Facebook.  Why not send innocent children out into the world with ditties composed to undermine the wealthy and the powerful?  Or record the horrors of a world controlled by the elite?

One of Governor Rauner’s chief demands before he will begin to entertain the current budget offered up by the Democratically-controlled General Assembly in Springfield is that they (the General Assembly) sign on to his Turnaround Agenda, showing fealty by passing some laws which indicate an unswerving acceptance of at least a few of his priorities:  right to work, reduced workers’ compensation, local controls, a freeze on property taxes.

In other words – no, in Rauner’s words – “if you accept my demands, I might deal with your oversized budget which will cost us a bit less than what was lost when we rescinded the last tax on income.” 

Madigan’s argument:  Rauner’s agenda has nothing to do with a budget.  He is trying to force a personal agenda which has nothing to do with making numbers work.  He stresses the need to undercut the middle class before he will accept a budget that will provide support for the marginalized and the middle class. 

Rauner’s argument:  I am for the middle class, but I need these requests for anti-union, anti-workers’ compensation, and property tax relief to be done first to provide a business-friendly climate for growing the middle class. 

Hauntingly, Rauner’s argument is another version, one presented in the midst of fiscal crisis for Illinois, that trickle-down economics works…and although Rauner has nothing to back that up in any substantive or empirical research, he is hoping that we will all swallow, just as we did when he ran the idea during his successful purchase of the governorship. 

None of us who worked for the state of Illinois are friends of Speaker Michael Madigan or his Attorney-General daughter Lisa Madigan.  We have seen and suffered the anxieties and anger of their illegal attempts to take our promised and paid for pensions from all of us.  Yet, in the most outrageous of absurdities, here is this same Speaker, arguing that he is trying to respect the rights of the middle class to be safe from persecution.

Only in Illinois, my friends. 

And if Rauner were to get his way before the budget could be entertained by his new governorship?  Premier would be local control, along with local property tax freezes.  Each local village or city enjoying their own specific processes on union contracting, educational funding, workers compensation, educational mandating, etc. , like smaller individual governments acting sovereignly within their own areas. 

During Medieval periods, individuals walking from one small town to another faced a surrounding wall and doorway though which they needed ask permission to enter, after declaring allegiance to all the laws within that particular village/city. 

“Who knocks there?”

“A carpenter, Joshua Jordenson.”

“Are you a trained union carpenter?”

“Never mind.  I’ll be moving on…”

Now that Springfield is in a budget stalemate, Rauner is taking his argument  once again on the road (instead of sitting down to hammer out the fiscal issues).  He will be the advance guy for the nearly $20 million he has to spend on commercials decrying the evils of those in Springfield who have some concerns accepting what he would do to the mentally ill, the homeless, the educationally needy, etc. 

Back to my Mom’s sweet poem.  I am reminded once again of the wealthy and elite – royalty actually – visiting the various villages during Medieval times, especially when the needed servants for their castles.  They’d send their lackeys out into the various peasant hovels to find babies to take for use as servants in their own castles.  The peasant, in order to save their children from being taken into a life of servitude, would tie the babies into the tree boughs in the evenings, hoping that the winds would rock the kids to sleep, and the strong-armed visitors at the doors would never find them.

If that worked, thank God, and the Lord’s desperate servants left.  But if the wind blew too hard and the bough broke?  Maybe a Speaker Madigan was waiting for them. Or worse, his daughter?

Unfunded Mandates: The Turn Around Agenda of Bruce Rauner

Unfunded Mandates: The Turnaround Agenda of Bruce Rauner

My wealthy friend Ernesto and I met for lunch the other afternoon at a local eatery, which offered a wide variety of wonderfully exotic Mediterranean samplings. 

The place was loud and bustling.  “Try the baba ganoush,” Ernesto loudly proffered, sliding the plate across the table to me, as I sipped a luscious mint tea.

“What a weird name.  Thanks,” I replied.  “Very good!”

“And how are you, my friend, now that our new Governor has started holding the feet of your corrupt Democratic legislators to the fire as they face a long summer of being forced to actually work?  This is a man who knows how to get things done!”

“I think the vote’s still out on that one, Ernesto.  Bruce may have warned his wife that he would ‘drive ‘em crazy’ in Springfield, but it occurs to me it is working the other way ‘round.  In fact, just the other day, I read that when Bruce suggested he’d serve only two terms, his wife retorted she’d be happy if he’d served only one.  That might be a fait accompli.

“You’re out of your elements in politics as well as dining, my friend.  This Governor’s Turnaround Agenda will elevate our state to significance again.”

“To me, it seems a catalog of complaints without any solutions – except for each community to embrace them all blindly?  I’m sorry, but I’m not so sure, Ernesto.  The bullet points all seem so nebulous.  What’s the issue with unfunded mandates or even the right to…”

“Unfunded mandates, my sadly naïve friend, are making you and I pay more for our dinners right now.  Do you see those mandatory signs that announce “no smoking” at every entrance? The smoking ashtrays outside in a small, canopied courtyard next to us?  The warnings that smoking is not allowed in the washrooms?”   You and I are paying for those signs, those ashtray stands, and that large heated canopy tent for smokers.”

“Really?”

“Unfunded mandates become an additional cost borne by the businesses because the state legislature decides to force such establishments not only to ban smoking but also notify the public it is disallowed.  And the local business or government has to bear those costs, my friend.  Now, let’s expand that to all the requirements forced upon us on even local levels, from education to other facets of business.  Can you begin to comprehend the unfairness and cost of it all?”

“Yes, of course, Ernesto, but in this case, let’s say, the business in which we enjoy our lunch has to endure an extra cost for protecting you and me from injury by exposure to second hand smoke.  Isn’t that an acceptable burden of operating commerce safely for those who come here?” 

Ernesto smiled.  “But our new Governor has identified over 280 unnecessary unfunded mandates that are being forced upon the local communities and school districts.  We need to stop that, so that you and I, and our families need not pay those costs for ridiculous enacted requirements determined by the General Assembly.” 

“Indeed, Ernesto, a talking point of the Turnaround Agenda boldly identifies that  ‘more than 280 unfunded mandates have been imposed on communities across Illinois, costing $billions.’  But, Ernesto, I have not been able to find any one specific example of one of those 280 unfunded mandates.  Have you?

“No, but…they will be provided in time…”

“And I even reached out unsuccessfully to the Office of Lieutenant Governor Evelyn Sanguinetti, who is charged with the task to shrink unfunded mandates in Illinois…, and later the office of State Senator Linda Holmes  who sits upon the “Local Government” committee and is a part of the Task Force. Her office has not received any documentation of the 280 (or even one) unfunded mandate that meets this nefarious characterization of unfair and punitive outcomes.”

“Yes, I know about this Task Force, and they are preparing to bring forth the necessary problems and solutions.  They have until December 2015.”

“Sounds familiar, my friend.  And the Office of Sanguinetti assures its coming to some resolution.  But the last time I looked at a list of unfunded mandates for Illinois, one which was made available in 2011, I had a hard time finding too much that was over the top….crazy…unfair…unnecessary…or extravagant.”

“But it was too much…I mean, monetarily.”

“Yes, it was extensive, Ernesto.  Nearly 120 pages with almost an average of 15 mandates per page (http://www2.illinois.gov/gov/budget/documents/budgeting for results/related documents/full list of mandates for bfr commission.pdf ), but the list was interesting in its purpose as well as its scope.  Not only were local educational mandates required to instruct about the Holocaust or to provide in-services against bullying, but also services for domestic violence, witness protection (from gangs too), disposal of dead animals, disposal of dead people, lead poisoning, groundwater protection, homeless prevention, public pension regulations per city/village, public waterway safety, asbestos abatement, mosquito abatement, child labor, food inspection, ….shall I go on?” 

 Just too many laws, my friend…”

 “So which of the 280 would you like to dispose of…or is this just a willy-nilly resolution which allows a local government to ignore the one they want out of well over 120 pages with protective services listed in most cases 20 per page?”

“Why should we listen to Springfield?”

“Well, I mean what if one local school district or its people decide they’ll ignore Black History month…or another says they don’t have time to teach about the Holocaust, or another says that firearm training for its police officers impinges on its ability to do something else with money. 

“Do you really want a small group of locals determining what they will do or not?  Of course, we’ll pay it back in some other method, won’t we?  If you decide not to provide training for your police officers, will we have another Baltimore or worse?  If we drop the required steroid prevention programs, will our children be better off?  If we decide not to require districts to test for autism, won’t we pay another cost later for that?” 

“You exaggerate this issue, my friend.”

“I probably do, Ernesto.  We liberals are like that.  On the other hand, this canopied tent through those flaps over there is an adaptation to a mandate, isn’t it?  Law does not require this.  In fact, this business man’s answer even flaunts the law.

“So…we still need to prevent it at all costs. Government has the power – and I would argue the obligation – to protect us from certain dangers, don’t you think?

“Who are they to tell us …anything?”

“They're us, aren't they? So, Ernesto, what’s in your Baba Gannoush?”