Chicago asks: Where's MINE? 04.01.2016

Chicago asks: Where's MINE? #WheresMine 04.01.2016

On Friday night, October 7, 2011, I was sitting with colleagues in a restaurant in Chicago's Greektown. We were anticipating the next day's Antiwar march on the 10th anniversary of the US invasion of Afghanistan, and we were also thinking ahead to the spring, 2012, NATO/G8 summit in Chicago.

We were talking about possible protest activities against NATO/G8, and their location relative to the summit meeting at McCormick Place. I remember saying something like, "It would be wonderful to see participation in every neighborhood in Chicago -- after all, the people in the our Chicago communities have a real beef with the elites that are terrorizing the rest of the world with war and failing to deliver for people here at home. Protests in every neighborhood in Chicago -- that would be the perfect 'welcome' for NATO/G8."

I even had a theme: #WheresMine. (Columnist Mike Royko said in his book Boss that the motto of Chicago is "City in a Garden" but it should be "Where's mine?")

OK, ok, spring 2012 may have been a little early to call for a general strike in Chicago.

Spring 2016 on the other hand . . . . 

The Chicago Teacher's Union has called for a general strike in Chicago to take place just three days from now, on April 1.

As I look back over posts (below) from recent months, it's no mystery why they'll be successful. Illinois budget cuts . . . police murders . . . abuses at Cook County Jail . . . the Homan Square black site scandal . . .   Failures of the CHA . . . . and more.

Want to get involved? It will be easy. Just walk outside your door and look for the protests on April 1.

Just look in any neighborhood in Chicago . . . .


Related posts

How might an uprising against inequality and dismantling the military-industrial complex dovetail?

(See WHERE'S MINE? Inequality in the US and the Military-Industrial Complex )







People in Illinois are standing up against the attempt by Governor Bruce Rauner to gut services in the state.  Courageous people are demanding change in "Moral Monday" protests.

(See PROTESTS IN ILLINOIS: Do these people look like they're gonna back down? )





In Chicago, one of the things that means is noticing the worsening housing situation, and the failure of the City to live up to its responsibility to help people who live their have affordable housing.

(See Palm Sunday March 20 in Chicago: Occupy!)




Poll figures indicate that SIXTY-FOUR PERCENT of Chicagoans think cover-ups and a code of silence are "a widespread problem" at the Chicago Police Department.

(See #ChiPAC: It's time. (Civilian Control of the Police in Chicago))



Cook County Jail is the perfect example of the nationwide injustice that Michelle Alexander described in her groundbreaking book, The New Jim Crow: mass incarceration, focused principally one people of color, in which "crimes" (often related to drug possession or other low-level offenses) become the mechanism for entrapping people in a cycle of incarceration that is brutalizing and often begins a downward spiral of lifetime discrimination.

(See Free Them All )




People around the world reading the exposé in The Guardian today about the thousands of (mostly African-American) people denied their rights while being detained at a secret Chicago Police Department location at Homan Square might wonder if anyone in Chicago is doing anything in an attempt to get control of the police.

(See CHICAGO: Twilight Zone? Constitution-Free Zone? (What's it look like to YOU?) )