I’ve not commented on the fire at E2 yet because I was unable to make any reliable judgments of the politics surrouding the whole deal. Certainly, the city dropped the ball in checking on the location as Phil Kadner points out. This seems to me not to be a big story.
The question is whether there is more going on underneath. The uber-cynical version is in audio by NPR which interviewed John Kass.
Kass’s argument is that a restaurant that fell on the wrong side of the oxymoronic Coalition for Better Government and the power brokers in Chicago.
The problem I have with Kass’s argument is that it is a lot different to neglect to figure out whether a club is open and actively trying to shut down a restaurant. That being said, Kadner’s last few lines explain what probably happened.
The problem of corruption in Chicago is not that all politicians are corrupt, it is that too many accept it as a way of doing business and don’t actively root it out. And Kass points out the problem with having few independent voices willing to stand up to Daley.
Jesse Jackson came to Chicago as an outsider, but now has an amazing degree of influence over local politics. That influence is unfortunately more interested in Jackson family wealth than making waves.
Kass points out that Sr. was more upset over the Barbershop than he was over 21 young adult African-Americans losing their lives. For this and many other reasons, Chicago misses having people like Harold Washington around. They played the political game and the greased the wheel, but they also kept people honest. In fact, you didn’t see Jackson in Chicago much during Washington’s time in office because he exiled him.