As Sam and I walked past the Federal Building in Chicago I
couldn’t help but think of the drama that took place inside during the Hastert
sentencing hearing just weeks ago. The
hearings, much anticipated, grabbed the headlines. Our country’s longest
standing Speaker of the U.S House of Representatives was exposed as a sex
offender. His victims, then teen age
students at Yorkville High School, now adults, testified after all these years
in court against their former coach. The
media gave us a glimpse into the secrets of a small town and how they can
impact people, both the small and the powerful.
And now it’s all over but the prison sentence, the civil suits, and of
course the healing.
So much goes on in Chicago, in Illinois, and in the world that
keeping up on it all is hopeless. So I
was not surprised when I walked to the corner of the plaza into the clutch of
people gathering there and found I was unfamiliar with the organization
sponsoring the event, their issues, and their campaign to air them. I was there
because Sam, a new young friend from church, asked me to go. I was not unfamiliar with the
politics of the group, but I share them. However it had been a long time since I stood
behind those values in the way I was about to that chilly Monday morning.
The organizers had the gear of street protests: the
bullhorns, the lightweight portable sound systems, the printed placards,
the handwritten signs. People in high
vis green vests were the marshalls, others in blue jackets were designated as spokespersons
to talk to the police and media. The
leader gave us instructions before the speeches started. I knew the drill. Lay out the day’s events, fire up the crowd,
start the march, reach the target, begin the action. It was nicely organized, calculated, and
orderly. I was glad to be part of it.
The main speaker, a young man about Sam’s age was Tom Gaulke, pastor
of First Lutheran Church of the Trinity. At 31st Street and Lowe
Avenue in Bridgeport, his church is a community anchor celebrating its 150th
anniversary this November. Tom is
navigating a tiny Evangelical Lutheran Church of America on a path to relevancy
and revival. “Much that I imagined about what ministry might look like had
radically changed, but the message of grace remains central, and increasingly
important to proclaim in a world filled with guilt, crushing expectations, and
alienation,” Gaulke said, “ that’s what Jesus would do.”
In 2011, he and partner organizations in Bridgeport formed
Bridgeport Alliance, a grassroots group that promotes responsive government and
an improved quality of life for Bridgeport residents. It currently
advocates to restore the 31st Street bus line. He’s the board president for
Southsiders Organized for Unity And Liberation, and he serves on the board of
IIRON, which trains people to participate in civic life through collective
action. Gaulke also has been active in
the Moral Mondays campaign that has organized demonstrations against Gov.
Rauner’s Illinois proposed budget cuts, which many believe will severely hurt
services for the working class and the poor.
That is what brought Tom Gaulke, Sam Barbour, and I together that
day. We are united in the belief the
budget that promises to emerge from Governor Rauner’s stubborn political stance
has and will hurt the people who need help the most.
“I am here” Tom Gaulke once wrote on his blog “to create a
world where those oppressed by abuse or other injustice are freed to speak out
against injustice, and find others to join them in speaking out, giving them
power - and a world where they can do this in the name of God.”
While still in Federal Plaza we heard from individuals
affected by the closure of social service agencies and the slashing of social
services. Students from Illinois’ public
colleges pointed out to the crowd that the Governor’s proposed budget allocates
only 70% of last year’s dollars (largely unpaid) in the coming fiscal
year. It appears they were bailed out in
recent weeks. In truth they were given short rope. Future state support under
Rauner promises to be cut by 30%.
Medicaid is cut. Local agencies
are already crippled. We prayed in
English, prayed in Spanish, and then we marched. I carried a placard. Where we were taking our
grievances I didn’t know but I hoped it wasn’t far. Bad knee you know.
We marched just kitty corner southeast from Federal plaza,
blocking traffic for only a short time, to the building at 131 S. Dearborn that
houses Citadel, a nebulous financial company unknown to me. I hoped it was not in the portfolio that was
once my 401 k. (I checked. It’s not.)
There were perhaps two hundred of us.
I didn’t know why we were stopping there. I walked up to one of the
organizers and asked
“What is the significance of this building? Why are we here?”
“This is where Ken Griffin’s company is. His office is in there. We’re hoping he’s in there now.”
“I see.”
I didn’t see at all. Just
as I didn’t know Tom Gaulke neither did I know Ken Griffin. I Googled him while standing on the sidewalk
outside Citadel. On my phone screen I
learned this: born in Florida, age 47, graduated Harvard University, founder
and CEO of Citadel since 1990, annual salary $1.7 Billion, net worth $7.3
Billion, Religion Presbyterian Christian.
Those are billions. With a
B.
After I got home I learned more about him. He’s rich and powerful, a lot like Illinois’
current governor. His narrative,
according to Wikipedia, goes like this.
In 1986 during his freshman year at
Harvard Ken Griffin began reading Forbes magazine and investing. In his sophomore year, he started a hedge
fund focused on convertible bond arbitrage.
The fund was capitalized with $265,000 from friends and family,
including money from his grandmother. He installed a satellite link to his dorm room
to acquire real-time market data. The investment strategy he devised helped
preserve capital during the stock market crash of 1987. Griffin’s success enabled him to launch a
second fund, and between the two funds he was managing just over $1 million
upon graduated from Harvard in 1989 with a degree in economics.
After graduating from Harvard, Frank C.
Meyer, an investor and founder of Glenwood Capital LLC, provided Griffin with
$1 million to invest. Griffin exceeded
Meyer's expectations and, according to the New York Times Meyer made 70% return
on the investment. In 1990, Griffin
founded Citadel in Chicago with $4.6 million. By 1998, Citadel had grown to a team of more
than 100 employees and $1 billion in investment capital.
In September 2004, Fortune magazine
ranked Griffin, who was 35 that year, as the eighth richest American under
forty in the category of self-made, United States based wealth. By 2014, Griffin’s net worth was estimated at
$5.5 billion. It’s apparently gone up
since then.
In 2012, Griffin said in an interview
with the Chicago Tribune that "This belief that a larger government is
what creates prosperity, that a larger government is what creates good is
wrong." Griffin makes political contributions and donations to political
candidates, parties, and organizations that support his views of limited
government. He donated $2.5 million to Bruce
Rauner, Republican candidate for Illinois governor.
In December 2015, Griffin endorsed Sen.
Marco Rubio for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination and stated that he
plans to donate millions to a pro-Rubio super PAC. Before this endorsement, Griffin had donated
to three super PACs supporting Rubio, Jeb Bush, and Scott Walker for the GOP
nomination. Scott Walker, Governor of
Wisconsin.
And that is how Sam and I and so many
others came to stand in front of Citadel.
Because Ken Griffin is the money behind and the voice in the ear of Governor
Bruce Rauner, who by withholding money to community agencies has hurt
so many in needy neighborhoods and communities in Illinois who rely on
government to help them. The same people
Tom Gaulke strives to help through his church in Bridgeport. Ken Griffin stands
with Bruce Rauner. Sam Barbour and I
were standing with Tom Gaulke.
We crowded against the glass doors of
131 S. Dearborn. It was lunch hour in
the loop and as 1:00 p.m. drew closer people who had ventured out of the
building for lunch could not re-enter. Some
were getting in from somewhere, probably the parking garage. But Moral Mondays volunteers sat in the middle
of revolving doors with others holding the panels so they could not turn. Inside other volunteers took positions in
front of the elevators. Three prominent
members of Moral Mondays sat in the lobby, chained together, plastic PVC pipe covering
their chains. Protesters supporting the
action that day sang songs, chanted, stayed together, and kept their eyes on
the cops. Chicago Police formed behind
us and were soon present in the lobby. They were cool and professional. Preselected protesters were there to be
arrested for acts of civil disobedience and the police had an obligation to
make those arrests in order to clear the building. It struck me that both sides played their
parts well.
Things began to happen in the
lobby. Workers with power tools were
summoned first to cut the PVC sleeves off the arms of the protesters, then to
cut through the chains that bound them together. The police and building maintenance me
produced folding panels so that our view was mostly blocked. Fox News had a videographer and journalist on
scene and later provided the most coverage and best news footage.
With his billions Ken Griffin buys art. Lots of art for lots of money. As of February 2016, Griffin had
purchased Willem de Kooning’s 1955 oil painting, Interchanged, for $300
million, and Jackson Pollock’s 1948 painting Number 17A, for $200
million, both from David Geffen. He
likes nice things. He has a gold replica
of one of the most recognizable pieces of art in the world in Citadel’s lobby,
Winged Victory. He likes to win and he’s
used to doing so. Victory looks as
though it suits him well.
One of the things Ken Griffin does not like is large
government. I think it is fair to
conclude that government cramps Ken Griffin and others like him. From where I sit in the shack I would say
their actions indicate they dislike government taking their money as taxes and
competing with them in areas like employment, service provision, and policy
setting. And though Illinois has been
good to Ken Griffin, I mean he did came here in 1990 and having done business
out of Chicago for all those years is now worth $7.3 Billion, give or take a Million,
he has taken aim at Illinois’ state government by helping to install his friend
and kindred soul Bruce Rauner as governor to act upon that dislike of
government by making it smaller. He
believes less government = more good for you and I, but certainly him.
If you make Illinois
more business friendly, their theory goes, by lowering worker’s compensation and
unemployment insurance costs, installing right to work laws, holding the line
or lowering taxes on corporations and small businesses, everything gets better
for everyone. If the economy is better
for Ken Griffin and Bruce Rauner it will be good for us. That’s the theory.
Back in Bridgeport, the neighborhood Richie Daley left for
a condo overlooking Millenium Park, Tom Gaulke and his parishioners are
concerned about other things. They’re
trying to find ways to help homeless kids now that the State is not paying the
agencies that used to help them. They’re
worried about their neighborhood public schools. They’re trying to keep gun violence off their
streets. They have lots of worries. The Bridgeport Alliance wants to restore the
31st Street CTA bus so that their neighbors without cars can get to
jobs in other parts of the city. They are
skeptical the theory, you know, of making Ken Griffin richer will translate to
better conditions in Bridgeport. They have
other ideas.
For instance, they believe a graduated state income tax,
which would produce more revenue by applying a higher tax rate on larger
incomes, would raise revenue which Illinois could use to help poor people. With increased dollars it seemed then
possible for government to increase drug treatment for addicts, improve
infrastructure like public transportation, fund neighborhood agencies which
cared for local kids. But that was
quickly rejected. That’s Tom Gaulke’s
theory and the theory of many. Tom goes
even further to suggest such thinking may be part of a larger plan that commands
us to help the needy, feed the hungry, care for our brothers. Tom finds that in the ancient literature that
guides his primary work as a minister.
It’s not a big jump from the money changers in the temple to standing in
front of Citadel for Tom Gaulke.
It’s
the premise of Moral Mondays. We have a moral
duty to help those less fortunate than us.
The path Illinois has taken for the past 11 months is basically immoral. Something must change. Taxing the rich seems feasible. A graduated income tax got about a week’s
play in the media and then it was shelved.
Failing that the coalition proposed a tax on financial
trades. A tax of .002% of the average
trade value applied to the Chicago Board of Trade, the Chicago Mercantile
Exchange, and the Chicago Board of options would generate $10 Billion
dollars. With a B. The CME (Chicago Mercantile) immediately
threatened to leave the state. The
proposal found no traction. Taxing the
rich seems logical to the poor and many others.
But it goes nowhere in Illinois. But
then Illinois is now led by the rich. After all the rich funded Governor Rauner’s successful campaign.
We
were standing right in front of them at the clean glass doors and windows of Ken
Griffin’s Citadel at 131 S. Wabash and the rich inside, protected by the
police, turned their backs on us and put up screens to block our view. 31 protestors were arrested that day. That was part of the action. Individuals, many parishioners of churches
throughout Illinois, gave themselves up to be arrested to make a political
point. So far it has not resonated. The stalemate between the rich and the poor
goes on. The rich, as you might guess,
are currently winning.
As the arrests began Sam and I left. Though I’m retired Sam has a new baby at his
house and had to get back to Ottawa. We
had sandwiched our trip between his Econ class at Kishwaukee College and his
obligations back home as a new Dad. We
didn’t have time to be arrested. The booking,
the bail, the court appearance. Those
arrested were prepared I’m sure. They knew
what they were doing, what the charge would be, how it would affect their
record. Lives are on the line in many ways. Voices are shouting to be heard. So far, money is talking louder.
That was May 9. It is now June 1 and Illinois still has no budget . The struggle continues.
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