![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/533\/2019\/05\/Lori_Lightfoot_at_MacLean_Center_03.png\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Is it an inaugural address<\/em> if it\u2019s given by a mayor rather than a president?\u00a0 Better safe than sorry, I guess.<\/p>\n At any rate, Chicago has a new mayor as of yesterday, and she gave a speech at her inauguration<\/a>, and, for what it\u2019s worth, she said some encouraging things with respect to city finances (including, yes, pensions):<\/p>\n My team has already been doing the necessary work of measuring the size and depth of our fiscal challenges, as well as working on a range of possible solutions. Once that analysis is complete, we will lay out a plan to put Chicago on the path to solvency.<\/p>\n No doubt some hard choices will have to be made and none of this is going to be easy. But we will do the hard work with transparency, integrity and a determination to put our pensions on a true path to solvency, and make our government work more efficiently, and without balancing budgets on the backs of low-wage and working-class Chicagoans. And we will get there \u2026 because we must.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Which is fine, I guess.\u00a0 I suppose it\u2019s a good thing that she doesn\u2019t say that \u201cpensions are sacrosanct.\u201d\u00a0 But Pritzker claimed to be making \u201chard choices\u201d and calling for everyone to make \u201csacrifices\u201d with respect to pensions, and his ultimate plan was a pension bond, the selling of unspecified state assets, and a reamortization, that is, a new \u201cramp\u201d the particulars of which he never specified.\u00a0 So there is quite a bit of waiting yet to see what Lightfoot will actually propose, though her prior comments about the untouchability of pensions combined with her rather restrained promise not to balance the budget \u201con the backs of low-wage and working-class Chicagoans\u201d \u2014 that is, lacking the usual promise not to raise taxes on the middle-class<\/em> \u2014 suggests a path of (planned) administrative efficiency and tax hikes for everyone else.<\/p>\n Now, if we\u2019re lucky, there will be some money to be found as a result of her corruption-fighting, and she\u2019s hit the ground running with a ban on aldermanic privilege (that is, the ability of aldermen to control zoning decisions in their ward, generally acknowledged to be a means by which they have enriched themselves by means of bribe-equivalent campaign donations from developers) and shake-ups of city council, the finance committee, etc.\u00a0 How much money city government loses due to corruption, and how this effects the city\u2019s economic development, I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n But here are some thoughts on the rest of her speech:<\/p>\n She begins with the usual sort of thanks to politicians and family and generic statements of hope that the city will become a place with lower crime and better education and more prosperity for all.\u00a0 She references (sorry, I think this is a bit tacky) being the first black female mayor and first openly-gay mayor in the city.\u00a0 She uses the four stars on Chicago\u2019s flag, which stand for four moments in Chicago\u2019s history (the establishment of Fort Dearborn, the Great Chicago Fire-rebuilding, and the World\u2019s Fairs of 1893 and 1933) and \u201creinterpret(s) these four stars new meaning for a new century\u201d.\u00a0 (Yeah, this rankles me, both because she had to shoehorn things a bit to get them to fit, as you\u2019ll see, and because I don\u2019t like to see upending of history.\u00a0 Yeah, I know this is a nit-pick.)<\/p>\n Her first star is safety, that is, a reduction in crime.\u00a0 She doesn\u2019t really have a specific plan except a plan to bring in experts to make a plan.\u00a0 And maybe that\u2019s as good as you can do, and there\u2019s not really a pat answer, and maybe she used some buzzwords that communicated more specifics than I picked up on.\u00a0 (She did say she wanted to provide \u201ca transition for our returning citizens,\u201d which is the new euphemism for ex-cons, and that she wanted to repair \u201cour broken mental health safety net\u201d which I understand to reference re-opening city-funded mental clinics that had been closed for lack of money.\u00a0 But how much of her plan is one of money-spending, whether directly by the city or via grants to community groups, vs. somehow providing expert advice to those community groups trying to do this work on their own, I can\u2019t tell.<\/p>\n Her second star is education.\u00a0 And, yes, promises about education inevitably end up being about how much money the city\/school district has to spend.\u00a0 She steers clear of specific Chicago issues such as the opening of charter schools and the closing of public schools when these lose students due to shifts to charter schools (or population loss).\u00a0 She does say that \u201c[e]very student should have the option to pursue vocational and technical training\u201d with apprenticeships rather than pushing four-year college for all.<\/p>\n Her fourth star is integrity, that is her pledge for reform and I truly hope she succeeds here.<\/p>\n And her third star is stability, which is the hodge-podge star, since she throws all manner of things together:\u00a0 neighborhood economic development, affordable housing (including mandates that developers provide this rather than paying fees-in-lieu), and the city\u2019s fiscal problems.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s where she should have stopped, or maybe had a few more bland words and happy talk.<\/p>\n Instead, she says,<\/p>\n As I stand here today, Georgia is also on my mind, as is Alabama and every other state that is enacting laws intended to deprive women of our rights. Me must stand with women all across our country who fear for their basic rights and feel powerless in the face of the hateful legislation designed to control our bodies, our choices. We cannot go back \u2014 not in Chicago, not as a nation. We will join together and we will fight.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Really?\u00a0 Look, I\u2019ve said already<\/a> that I am not jumping into the debate on whether the Alabama and Georgia laws are the right thing, strategically; I worry that these bills will lose the support of those otherwise inclined to oppose abortion at least in the mushy-middle but writers who I\u2019ve generally come to believe are intelligent and careful thinkers think otherwise, so I don\u2019t have confidence either way.\u00a0 But does this really belong in such an-otherwise kumbaya speech, to use such antagonistic language for people who simply believe that human beings deserve protection from deliberate killing before they are born?\u00a0 I am so, so tired of abortion-rights folk unwilling to even grant that abortion opponents do not hate women, don not want to take away \u201cbasic rights\u201d because they are unwilling to even recognize the basic premise being opposition to abortion.\u00a0 And for Lightfoot to have done this in her first official speech leaves a sour taste in my mouth \u2014 especially since she needs to set a tone in terms of whether she wants to work together with everyone who\u2019s willing to join in her efforts, or whether she wants to go to battle with everyone she perceives of as her enemy.<\/p>\n And how will she \u201cfight\u201d?\u00a0 Does she plan on boycotts or using city resources or her own political capital or her personal \u201coff-duty\u201d time to fight for abortion access in other states?<\/p>\n And, finally, she calls everyone to follow the Golden Rule and says that this will be a guiding principle:<\/p>\n We will establish a new social compact here in Chicago based on a simple principle shared by every major religion in the world.<\/p>\n It goes by many names.<\/p>\n In Buddhism<\/a> it says, \u201cHurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.\u201d<\/p>\n In the Quran, it says, \u201cWhoever saves a life, it is as though he had saved all mankind.\u201d<\/p>\n It is in the Torah \u2026 and again in the New Testament, it is called the Great Commandment: \u201cLove thy neighbor as thyself.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n No, no, and no.\u00a0 In the first place, there is a clear contrast between a Buddhist<\/a> or neo-pagan formulation (in the latter case, \u201cDo what you will, so long as it harms none<\/a>\u201c), which is a guideline for not doing harm to others<\/em>, and the Jewish\/Christian formulation which includes a positive call to actively do good to others<\/em>.<\/p>\n