Stumbled across this story about a man named John Rukavina who is a member of Chicago’s Local 1 ironworker union. John just turned 75, but in these videos and interview here, he is 74 years old – and still climbing up on the top of the skyscrapers in Chicago to install new antennas. John claims to have worked on every high tower in Chicago since 1964. More…
Tag Archives: Chicago
Boston and Chicago Speak Out Against Chick-fil-A | Chi-town blocks new store, Beantown Mayor pens letter 52
Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy has received a torrent of reactions, both opposing and supporting, to his recent comment:
“I think we are inviting God’s judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at Him and say ‘we know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage’ and I pray God’s mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we have the audacity to define what marriage is about.”
NATO Protest War Vets Return Medals | What the news didn’t show you… 7
This is a two-part publication with this being the second post. Please check out the first part, “NATO Protest Photos from Chicago | What the news didn’t show you…“
Anti-NATO protestors gathered near McCormick Place, the site of the largest NATO summit in the organization’s six-decade history. There were thousands of protestors, and not just Occupy Movement protestors. These were people from all walks of life, all types of backgrounds who joined together to protest one of the most powerful alliances in the world.
NATO Protest Photos from Chicago | What the news didn’t show you… Reply
This is a two-part publication. This first post is to show the photos, the sheer volume of people that both live in Chicago and traveled there to protest NATO.
Anti-NATO protestors gathered near McCormick Place, the site of the largest NATO summit in the organization’s six-decade history. There were thousands of protestors, and not just Occupy Movement protestors. These were people from all walks of life, all types of backgrounds who joined together to protest one of the most powerful alliances in the world. In the days leading up to the two-day summit, nurses rallied in a downtown plaza to call for a “Robin Hood” tax on banks’ financial transactions. The next day, groups marched to Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s house to protest the closure of six community mental health clinics.
The Parting Shot for April 21, 2012 14
Is it real? Or is it Photoshopped?
(Replaces “Is it live or is it Memorex?” from the “old days.”
Location: Lake Shore Drive, Chicago
Photo credit: Unknown
Is Big Brother in Chicago? Estimated 10,000 cameras survey the city Reply
In what has been dubbed Operation Virtual Shield, thousands of public and privately owned security cameras have been put in place in Chicago and linked together, creating a capsule of surveillance over the entire city, more extensive than anywhere else in the United States. Chicago holds the record for number of surveillance cameras, estimated at up to 10,000. The network is said to have cost $60 million. Officials say it is worth the price, but privacy concerns are at a peak.
This brings back memories of the Red Squad in Chicago back during the cold war….
The arm of Chicago’s law enforcement known alternately as the Industrial Unit, the Intelligence Division, the Radical Squad, or the Red Squad, had its roots in the Gilded Age, when class conflict encouraged employers to ally themselves with Chicago’s police against the city’s increasingly politicized workforce. Following the Haymarket bombing, Captain Michael J. Schaack orchestrated a vicious campaign against anarchism, resulting in 260 arrests, bribed witnesses, attacks on immigrants and labor activists, and convoluted theories of revolutionary conspiracy. Continuing its use of both overt and covert tactics, such as surveillance, infiltration, and intimidation, Chicago’s Red Squad in the 1920s under Make Mills shifted its attention from anarchists to individuals and organizations who the Red Squad believed to be Communist. Casting a wide net, the squad by 1960 had collected information on approximately 117,000 Chicagoans, 141,000 out-of-towners, and 14,000 organizations. After the 1968 Democratic National Convention, the Red Squad expanded its targets from radical organizations like the Communist and Socialist Workers Parties to minority and reform organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, National Lawyers Guild, and Operation PUSH.
After 11 years of litigation, a 1985 court decision ended the Chicago Police Department’s Subversive Activities Unit’s unlawful surveillance of political dissenters and their organizations. In the fall of 1974, the Red Squad destroyed 105,000 individual and 1,300 organizational files when it learned that the Alliance to End Repression was filing a lawsuit against the unit for violating the U.S. Constitution. The records that remain are housed at the Chicago Historical Society. The public requires special permission to access them until 2012.
