How much times have changed politically. Bernie proud of protest bust

There would have been a time when a candidate seeking government office would have considered it a political death if word got out that they once took part in a political protest.

And the thought that there were pictures of the candidate in question being cuffed by police officers who are hauling him off to jail? You can forget about that guy ever being able to think of running for office again.

YET TIMES TRULY do change, it seems.

For that is the situation presidential dreamer Bernie Sanders, the senator from  Vermont who has proudly used the socialist label to describe his political leanings, is now in.

Kartemquin Films found it had footage of a protest that took place on Aug. 5, 1963 at 73^rd Street and Lowe Avenue, with one of the protesters bearing a strong resemblance to what we’d think a youthful Sanders would look like.

Also, the Chicago Tribune went digging through their own archives and found that one of their photographers took pictures of that protest. One of which is the “money shot,” so to speak, of a protester in handcuffs being taken away.

THE PROTESTER IN question in that shot? A then-student at the nearby University of Chicago by the name of Bernie Sanders.

I’m sure if Sanders were seeking the Republican nomination for anything, his reaction would be different. For that matter, if any of those knuckleheads seeking the presidency were to have been in a protest way back then, we’d be hearing the apologies now.

Now they were experiencing a moment of youthful ignorance, and how they now know better than to do anything so disrespectful as to express opposition to the establishment.

Which is a sentiment that many of those conservative ideologues really believe, even though such expression of opposition is about as “American” a concept as exists.

BUT BERNIE IS wishing to be the Democratic nominee, and one who sees how his past actions can actually be used to bolster the image he wants to create for himself as he tries to avoid losing the early momentum he gained from victories or near victories in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Because one of the raps against the Vermont politico is that he’s an old white guy who’s really not all that in tune with the interests or concerns of black people.

As it turns out, Sanders was arrested while protesting the “Willis Wagons.” Which to anyone who knows their Chicago history was that 1960s effort by Chicago Public Schools officials to thwart efforts to truly integrate the schools racially.

When the black neighborhood schools became too cramped, rather than move the overflow to schools in white neighborhoods (let’s not forget that many white families were already using the Catholic school system to keep away from people not like themselves), school officials erected mobile homes in the parking lot to use as extra classroom space.

THE THEN-SUPERINTENDENT of the Chicago Public Schools back then was Benjamin Willis – hence the use of the “Willis Wagon” monicker to denounce the practice.

The practice eventually created such a backlash that it drove Willis out-of-town. And when Willis died decades later, his obituaries all led with the fact that he was the namesake of the wagons.

The ones that caused the liberal-minded college student to spend a day in the Englewood neighborhood to protest – and be obnoxious enough that the police felt compelled to take him away.

And now, he wants it to help bolster his “liberal” credentials against Hillary – whose own ‘ancient history’ credentials include once being a youthful member of the Congressional staff that looked into impeachment for then-President Richard M. Nixon concerning Watergate.

SO A LOW-LEVEL Watergate staffer versus someone who ‘went to jail’ (even if it was just a couple of hours in a South Side police district holding cell) to picket something still considered locally repulsive some five decades later?

Who knows? It may actually get Bernie a couple of extra votes in Chicago!

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Brady “promises” no ideological agenda in works, but what about Legislature?

Republican gubernatorial hopeful William Brady made a promise, of sorts, to the Daily Herald newspaper of suburban Arlington Heights – he’s so focused on trying to resolve the massive budgetary shortfall made worse by national economic struggles that he has no intention of pushing a conservative agenda on a myriad of social issues.

Brady is the state senator from Bloomington whose ideology is pretty much in line with many downstate Illinois residents, which means he doesn’t come at life from the perspective of someone who has experienced urban life on a daily basis.

SO YES, HE’S a conservative. He admits it. But he doesn’t have time to try to lead Illinois government into approving a whole series of laws meant to impose those ideological attitudes on everybody.

“My agenda is about rebuilding Illinois’ economy and bringing integrity back to the government,” Brady told the Daily Herald, which then turned around and joined the ranks of newspapers across the state that (predictably) gave his campaign their endorsement.

That may well be Brady’s intent as of right now. He may be telling the truth, as he perceives it.

Yet my own gut reaction says that Brady’s “promise” doesn’t mean a whole heck of a lot.

IT IS BECAUSE I remember the spring of 1995.

When the November 1994 election cycle resulted in both chambers of the General Assembly falling into control of Republican legislative leaders, along with all six statewide Constitutional officers being of the GOP, we got what turned into a two-year period of Republican “domination.”

That version of state government was determined to pass its own ideological agenda, including many bills that for years had been given lip service by Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, whose aides would let them come up for votes so that they could fail to pass.

Madigan, then, would claim that “the people” rejected those ideas.

WHY I AM skeptical about Brady’s promise is that I remember this ideological effort was led by the Legislature. Then-Senate President James “Pate” Philip of Wood Dale and newly-promoted (after many years of minority leader status) House Speaker Lee Daniels of Elmhurst used the initial weeks of the spring 1995 session to ram through bill after bill after bill that was long desired by the conservative ideologues, then used the rest of the session to kill off anything desired by Democratic, or urban, interests.

I don’t believe then-Gov. Jim Edgar would have undertaken any effort to lead this movement. Then again, he didn’t have to. He just had to sign into law all the measures that the GOP-dominated Illinois Legislature approved – including one measure that clarified Illinois law to say that gay people couldn’t get married in this state (not that they ever could).

IF (and I realize it is a big “if”) the mood of the electorate in Illinois is such that the only people in the state who vote reliably for the Democratic Party’s candidates are those voters in Cook County (which is what happened in 1994), then we have the chance that the Democratic majorities in the Illinois Legislature could disappear.

Do I really believe that Brady (who only got the begrudging endorsement of Edgar himself) would be willing to stand up to a Republican-controlled Legislature if they were to start pushing the social agenda? No.

DO I DOUBT that a GOP General Assembly would push for such an agenda? No.

I’d bet anything that the people who are most eager to vote in this year’s election cycle are doing so for the exact reason that they want political people who will push a conservative ideological agenda

Of course, I’m also not convinced that the conditions of this electoral cycle – even if they do turn into a rout by Illinois voters against “Democratic” Chicago – will turn out to be as ridiculous as what occurred back in 1994.

For one thing, even the most partisan of Republicans seems to think that their party has losers running for state Attorney General and Secretary of State. Which means there would be a much more visible Democratic presence in Illinois government than there was 15 years ago (when the only thing that wound up holding the GOP majority in check was an Illinois Supreme Court that wound up spending the bulk of the next two years striking down as “unconstitutional” many of those new laws).

IT’S ALSO NOT a shoo-in that the General Assembly is going to shift in overall partisan leadership. There likely won’t be as many Democratic Party members, but Madigan is campaigning more aggressively than he has in years. Perhaps it is because he doesn’t want an encore of that two-year period (1995-96) when he only had the title of “Minority Leader”

In short, Brady has potential to have enough people interfering with him – even if he wanted to push for an ideological agenda.

Which makes me wonder if the real point of Brady’s “promise’ is to send a coded message of sorts to the partisan faithful that they should tone down their dreams about what would be accomplished – should the voters actually go so far as to pick Brady over Gov. Pat Quinn come the Nov. 2 elections.

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The 1960s will end some time around 2050

One of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign themes is that his election will bring an end to the infighting between the factions of U.S. society who lived through the social turmoil of the late 1960s.

He thinks that choosing a president who did not come of age during the “Summer of Love” or the My Lai Massacre will allow the nation as a whole to move forward, rather than getting caught up in the continuing battles of the culture war between so-called liberals and conservatives.

Critics of the Vietnam War march along Michigan Avenue in conjunction with the 1968 Democratic Convention. These placards (below) were distributed to Chicagoans who approved of the brutal police treatment towards the protesters, which the Walker Commission labeled a "police riot." Photographs provided by Chicago History Museum.

But the degree to which the spirit of the ‘60s is embedded in the mindsets of the people (both “dove” and “hawk”) who lived through the era ensures that not even Obama in the White House could bring an end to the social squabbles that had their roots planted 40-something years ago.

The latest outburst of ’60s tensions came earlier this week when 58-year-old Joseph Pannell said he would not fight extradition to face criminal charges related to the 1969 shooting of a Chicago police officer.

Understandably, the officer who was shot, Terrance Knox, remains upset, particularly because Pannell has managed to live the bulk of his life in freedom in Canada without having to face criminal charges.

At the time of the shooting, Pannell was 19 and a sympathizer of the Black Panther Party, which saw itself as a revolutionary group willing to use force to defend the civil rights of black people. Many African-American people who lived during the times remember the Panther party as being a group offering social programs such as free breakfasts to help impoverished West and South side neighborhoods.

Knox is firmly on the other side of the culture clash, telling the Chicago Sun-Times that Parnell of the Black Panther Party, “is what I would consider in today’s terms a terrorist.”

I know Knox is not alone in that belief. When the City Council seriously considered a proposal two years ago to rename a one-block strip of Monroe Street to honor Fred Hampton (the Black Panther leader in Chicago who was killed during a Dec. 4, 1969, police raid), the Fraternal Order of Police used its clout with white aldermen to squash the measure.

Some black activists to this day insist the police raid was an assassination of a budding black leader, although prosecutors never did bring criminal charges against anyone in connection with the incident.

Law enforcement officials prefer to remember Hampton and the Panthers as a criminal element not worthy of praise. They definitely do not want to be reminded that the reason Panthers felt the need to arm themselves was because they believed African-American people back then were being harassed – rather than protected – by the police.

The presence of the Oakland, Calif.-based Black Panthers in Chicago will always be controversial, even though many of the group’s survivors have moved well into mainstream society.

Bobby Rush – who now laughingly tells the story of becoming a founding member of the party’s Illinois chapter after national Panther leaders Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton were arrested in Chicago and knew of no one else in the city who could bail them out of jail – is possibly the biggest success story.

He has served in Congress since 1993, and currently represents the South Side and inner southwest suburbs. To some, even that is controversial.

The majority African-American city neighborhoods in his district view him as an old warrior from the ‘60s who is looking out for their interests, while some in the white suburban communities are wary of him.

In one case, former Crestwood Mayor Chester Stranczek tried to use his political influence to get his town drawn into another congressional district, saying he did not believe someone with Rush’s background could adequately represent the ideas of the white ethnics who live there.

Perhaps Obama’s presence on the political scene is a sign that, to quote Sam Cooke, “A Change is Gonna Come.”

After all, Pannell told reporters this week the reason he is now willing to return to Chicago after decades of living a peaceful life in the suburbs of Toronto is that he sees the presence of Obama and the way he is perceived by people in the United States as evidence that he might get a fair hearing in the judicial system.

But let’s be honest. While some of us like to mock Hillary Clinton’s claim many years ago that a “vast, right-wing conspiracy” was targeting her husband’s presidency, she wasn’t exactly being paranoid.

There WERE social conservatives with ample funding from sympathetic foundations who were anxiously awaiting, readying themselves to pounce on Bill Clinton the moment he dropped his pants at an inopportune moment.

The choice of Hillary Clinton as president will merely stoke the raw emotions of those people (thereby ensuring that the 2010s will be a repeat of the 1990s), their embers of anger will not die out just because of Barack Obama.

For some, the presence of a non-white man as Leader of the Free World may even cause more of an outburst than the presence of Hillary. The split caused by the ‘60s is not going to end anytime soon.

Who is winning the split is determined largely by the perceptions of the individual. Recently on MSNBC, a panel of professional political pontificators was talking about the presidential campaigns when conservative commentator Pat Buchanan said the situation in this country remained largely a battle between John Wayne and Jane Fonda, “and John Wayne is winning.”

To his mindset, I’m sure he likes the idea of the tough-talking cowboy actor beating up on the 60s generation star of such films as “9 to 5” and “Barbarella” (my favorite for pure cheesiness is “Cat Ballou”) whose opposition to the Vietnam War was so intense that she is still remembered for the North Vietnamese propaganda photographs she posed for alongside an anti-aircraft gun.

But would a country where “John Wayne is winning” seriously be banning cigarette smoking in public – the way Illinois and 21 other states have? I can’t help but think that Jane has ol’ John in a headlock and has the potential to drop him for good.

Whenever I think about it philosophically, I realize the 1960s will not end until some time between the years 2050 and 2060.

Think about it. Every generation manages to produce a few members who, through good health and the luck of the draw, live past 100. So someone in the United States who was a teenager or college-age person back in the 1960s and manages to live long enough will become a centenarian at about the middle of the 21st century – similar to how the last veteran of the Civil War didn’t die until 1959.

Only when all of the children of the ‘60s are gone will the unrest that sprang up in the decade come to an end.

Of course, that leaves one question. Will the last ‘60s child be a “hawk” or a “dove?” Are we destined for the sight about 40 years from now of the last ‘60s child wearing a tie-dyed shirt and proclaiming the virtues of the flower children over a racist society?

Or is it going to be someone who supported the idea of the U.S. military in Vietnam, proclaims him or herself to be a “real American,” and thinks that his survival longer than any other of his generation is the ultimate proof that, “the hippie freaks lost.”

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EDITOR’S NOTES: I love the Encyclopedia of Chicago. Here are entries concerning the Black Panther Party (http://encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/142.html) and civil rights protests in Chicago (http://encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/293.html).

Here’s a Panther perspective (http://www.blackpanther.org/legacynew.htm) about the organization denounced by then-FBI leader J. Edgar Hoover as, “the greatest threat to the internal security of the United States.”