John Stroger, 1929-2008

The King is dead. All hail the King!

While speaking ill of the dead on the day they died is undoubtably bad form, death is part of the human condition and does not give him a pass on accountability for how he ran this county.

He treated himself as a King and Cook County as his fiefdom. Even down to his (apparent) attempts to ensure the fiefdom passed to his son when he was unable to rule any longer. I say apparent because it is possible the Toddler orchestrated that hot mess all by himself--but I seriously doubt it. Will he be judged as a horrible man by history? Likely not. One could argue he probably did many more good things than bad things for this county. It was always the way he got things done that irked most people. Was he corrupt and unscrupulous? Undoubtably yes.

When you reach Stroger's level of power and longevity, you are no longer serving the Machine. You are the Machine. I do agree he accomplished many many positive things for this County and the black community. Unlike Boston's style of corruption (where hunks of cement literally fall out of the sky), our style tends to still get things done--often even very positive things. It just so happens that ceratin friends of said corrupt system happen to make a little (or a lot in most cases) of profit in the process. Like any serious Illinois politican, you have to take the good with the bad. Stroger was not exception.

Oh come on Fed, to even suggest that he was Daley's equal is ludicrous, and I aint talking about the dumb A*S rapper.

Heck up untill he was elected Board President he was still getting stiffed by the a big segment of the Democratic Machine that he never ever betrayed.

And many White pols didn't have to grovel before him and I know you can't name one. As long as they got the backing from the Machine( even if they like Madigan, etc, bucked the machine and supported some one else instead of him) he remained loyal to the Machine.

And he helped lots of African American not just those in the 8th ward, although that was his base.

The Trib has pulled the comments from the Stroger story on their site. The comment were generally negative about this dirty crook. The comment above, "he did almost single handily build Black middle class Chicago". Is patently stupid. He spent all the money he could lining the pockets of his family and associates. He was a world-class dirt bag. He raised taxes as often as he could, spent money like a drunk robber baron, and did nothing for the poor of Cook County (take a drive on the south and southwest sides, thirty years of nothing). The progress on the Southside has occurred in spite of this dead, fat, jac**ss. Now we only have to wait another 40 years the son to follow his father to the grave. The crown was passed, the kingdom rolls on.

p.s

while I am waiting for the books and information from Simpleton and Harbor,

I'm reminded of what the progressive W.E.B Dubois said about Booker T. Washington -who in life was his political enemy- upon Washington’s death. Remember Washington ran something called the Tuskegee Machine back then.

I would share these words but they would be wasted on you two, because your understanding of that period in history is just as blank as your understanding about how and when Stroger came up. But of course you will continue to speak on about this any way from the deep depths of your privileged Midwest stupidity. Now excuse me while I go have a drink.

Wow. Are you one of Todd's goons who call in radio shows and haunt the internet defending the family honor? You have the grammatical and spelling skills to work in County politics. The total lack of wit helps too.

Stroger was a uniformily corrupt politicos Chicago has ever seen, and it runs in the family.

Let's start with the stroke. The man was clearly not going to recover, but rather than allow Forest Claypool (who stood up for reform, accountability and an end to buddy-boy patronage in the county) to run (thus discounting the votes of tens of thousands of county residents) Stroger's son was allowed to stand in. An act that clearly has more precendent in medieval england than the United States.

Let's go back further. Stroger's legacy, in his mind and that of his supporters, is his commitment to healthcare for the poor. Have you been to Stroger hospital? If there's a monument to the bloated beauracracy and waste. Even as a poverty hospital it's emberassing.

Graft, patronage, cronism...yawn. It's Chicago, are you even surprised. Stroger and his ilk take it to a new level. These are the guys who racialize every issue (Todd couldn't pass his budget, must be a racist board!) while at the same time disenfranchizing black voters. They play politics with the ministers and roll over and play nice to the national party, delivering up the machine black vote every election like clockwork.

And what good has it done for the black population of Cook County? Staggering poverty in the city, abandoned neighborhoods, gentrification that benefits the wealthy and connected. Drive through Englewood (during the day, armed) or Austin and check out Stroger's legacy. He sold out his own people time and again.

Lets talk history. Booker T. Washington? you mean the man who asked his own people to give up the struggle for social equality in return for economic incentives. The "Atlanta Compromise" ranks up there with Vidkun Quisling and Neville Chamberlain for moral cowardice and naivete.

Stroger traded on the backs of the black poor and left of legacy of corruption. For all the people betrayed by his false promises, the neighborhoods laid to waste, the millions and millions that vanished into fat white hands...Long may he rot.

Dumb creature and Dumbtilda. I'm not going to even engage you two any more because its a waste of my time. But I will trade insults :-)

simple creature your name says it all.
As if you could ever amount to the hight of Washington's( as flawed as he was) Boot( or stroger's as flawed as he was) Boot, which is why you cannot judge them, especially as your historical perspective and ability to put them into context of their time, is that of a worm. Which is why you answered my question with the stupid rant of a stupid liberal.

Oh and is that Matilda I hear barking? Well while Ferdy may have left Chicagoist, she did leave something behind . She left her dirty undies with a big skid mark known as Matilda.

Fed Up. We have to stop agreeing on general principals like this. Its bad for my reputation.
Yea, Buck-O you raised some cogent points, sir. But I will counter will nuance tomorrow. Now excuse my while I walk my dog and then I'm "gonna put on my wolf suit and make mischief of one kind and another"! :-}

Hey, it's all in the past now.

Can we bury his son with him, Ancient Egyptian-style now? Pleeeeeeease?

Spook:

So the essence of your argument is that Stroger wasn't that bad because Daley and Madigan are far worse? Further, he's really excused from any actual blame or criticism because he was a black man operating within a crooked system?

That not only borders on the insane, it runs for the border, jumps it and starts a small auto repair business in Laredo.

Your argument doesn't excuse Stroger or give him any kind of valid legacy. It makes him more of a complacent part of the system. Of course he was taking marching orders from Daley, he's been doing that since the first Daley. The fact that he's in a "sub machine" as opposed to part of the actual Daley Machine doesn't get him a pass.

According to your thinking, he may have 'only' played safe harbor to the cronies dregs of the Daley/Madigan regime (shudder to think) but he was still a vital part of breaking County government. He didn't choose his battles or try to keep his head down while making change. In your conception of the man he simply did what he was told to do, by white men. In essence, a slave.

I call bullshit on that. Stroger went into the beast and knew what he was doing. You think his boy Urkel learned all his tricks from the ether?

And if you do reply, stop your 9-year old bombast bullshit name-calling and talk like a fucking adult here. You're neither whimsical nor clever. You want to talk about privilege vs research? Please. That sort of "you'll never know the truth because you aren't in the cabal" twaddle washed down Mike Royko's drain 30 years ago pal.