Rahm Emanuel, Laquan McDonald and Black Rebellion in Chicago

[marmar]

Rahm Emmanuel, Laquan McDonald and Black Rebellion in Chicago
by PAUL STREET


Beneath a carefully constructed pretense of concern for racial justice, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has long been a dedicated corporatist “law and order” enemy of Black America. During his time as a top political operative in the arch-neoliberal Bill Clinton White House, the notorious bully Emanuel (later to be nicknamed “Rahmbo”) was a driving force behind the 1994 federal “three strikes” Clinton crime bill.

That draconian measure helped make Bill Clinton “the incarceration president” and contributed to a significant increase in the monumental hyper-imprisonment and criminal marking of Black Americans. Among other terrible things, the law put 100,000 more officers on the streets, allocated $10 billion for new prison construction, and eliminated Pell Grant funding for inmates pursuing college degrees while in prison.

Prior to that outrage, Emanuel joined up with Bill Daley to lead Clinton’s passage of the North American Free Trade Act (NAFTA) – a critical investor rights measure that helped capital drain millions of jobs away from industrial regions where impoverished Black populations desperately needed paid employment.

NAFTA-encouraged deindustrialization notwithstanding, Emanuel was a leading force behind Clinton’s vicious 1996 “welfare reform.” The “Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act’s” elimination of poor families’ former entitlement to basic family cash assistance has wreaked havoc on Black families stuck in jobless ghettoes ever since.

As Barack Obama’s original White House chief of staff, Emanuel consistently steered policy rightward, towards the interests of the nation’s predominantly white 1% and contrary to those of America’s disproportionately nonwhite lower and working class. ..................(more)

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/12/04/rahm-emmanuel-laquan-mcdonald-and-black-rebellion-in-chicago/