America’s is a sickness of the mind, the unwavering belief by people in power that free-market capitalism will somehow work for everyone.
As with a virus that refuses to die, the effects are insidious, because the very rich have convinced themselves that they made it on their own, and that others have only themselves to blame if they are poor.
Rahm Emanuel is Mayor 1% [3]. He speaks a politician’s words to entice many Chicagoans to vote for him, but his actions are on behalf of his friends and colleagues in the business world.
Snubbing the Needs of Average PeopleÂ
The author of Mayor 1%, Kari Lydersen [4], tells the story of Helen Morley, a resident of the southwest side of Chicago and a regular patient at one of the mental health clinics closed [5] by Mayor Emanuel. At Chicago’s 175th birthday party in 2012, Morley pleaded, “Mayor Emanuel, please don’t close our clinics! We’re going to die…There’s nowhere else to go.” Emanuel ignored her. According to Lydersen, Morley and others believed that the mayor “didn’t understand the role these specific clinics played in their lives and the difficulty they would have traveling to other locations.”