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Who and What are Machine these days vs Who/What are not??
Interesting discussion above on who/what is and isn't machine these days.
It can always devolve into mere definitions and semantics, however I have to same I'm much more with Chicago103.
I still have trouble thinking anyone is arguing in good faith if they are presenting Rahm as any sort of outsider, reformer, or not fully part of the true inner spirit of good 'ole fashioned Chicagaww machine style politics. It just isn't so - at his core, that is not at all what he is about. If you actually believe that, it means he's likely pulled one over on you.
Think about it: If he's brought the machine into his fold, ie 90% or whatever of old fashioned machine politicians support him and work for him, etc - he hasn't changed the machine, and brought it over to his side - rather, he now is the machine (actually though, he never 'left' it)
Pinstripe patronage is still patronage. In an age where many are deluded into thinking corporations and hedge funds are people, and money is speech, those strategies - advancing policies and/or awarding contracts that your benefactors explicitly or implicitly want/expect in exchange for their campaign contributions - is in fact fully "machine". It's not at all about labor causes = machine, corporatism policies = not machine. That's not only a crude analysis, but a wrong one. Rahm is definitely a full-fledged member of the machine. Just because one may like some pro-business policies that he may (or actually may not) have, and one dislikes traditoinal, corrupt Chicagaww machine politics, does not in fact make Rahm not machine. Also, to try to make a case that Karen Lewis is more machine than Rahm is borders on laughable. She is definitely more of a legitimate 'outsider'.......
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It's simple, really - try not to design or build trash.
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