To the editors:
For it should go without saying that the Daley administration is thoroughly reflective of the class structure of American society. Who has great wealth can purchase great political power; and who doesn’t, counts for shit. Given this elementary fact of the local polity, it was predictable as far back as the spring of 1989 that the administration would defend Chicago’s business class (especially Com Ed) against the city’s popular classes. Almost by definition, then, acquisition of Edison’s facilities was never an option–despite much rhetoric to the contrary. That so many people could express “shock” and “surprise” after the October 22 announcement of the new franchise was a testimony to the success of a propaganda campaign pretending otherwise. While it kept Com Ed’s watchdogs barking up the wrong tree, the Com Ed-Daley partnership reached that agreement each member of it was duty bound to reach.
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But Henderson shouldn’t feel too bad about goofing on this issue–he is far from being alone. Roughly 99 percent of the rest of Com Ed’s “critics” were just as successfully duped as he was. Recall, once again, Com Ed’s watchdogs who expressed “shock” or “surprise” on October 22. The only way they or anybody else could have been surprised by the new franchise was if they spent the previous 30 months or so sitting on their brains. I’ll bet the Com Ed-Daley administration partnership wasn’t surprised.
