04-19-2009, 08:56 PM
I read this article recently in the Tribune. A group stormed Rep. Kirk's office demanding he vote for a pathway to citizenship. He didn't appreciate this Chicago style tactics. Call Kirk's office and let your opinion be known about border security and amnesty.
707 Skokie Boulevard, Suite 350
Northbrook, IL 60062
Phone: 847-940-0202
Fax: 847-940-7143
Immigration protest: Political dance still all show 40 years later
John Keilman Local observer
April 17, 2009
Nearly 40 years ago, the dapper social critic Tom Wolfe published an essay titled "Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers," his phrase for a political minuet performed by activists and the government in radicalized San Francisco.
Young militants wanting to preserve a summer jobs program descended on a poverty office in their revolutionary best, hoping to freak out (or "mau-mau") The Man so spectacularly that terrified bureaucrats would shovel money at them.
They were greeted by a low-level civil servant (or "flak catcher"), whom they gleefully intimidated with glares and bluster. The staffer sputtered vague promises, and the radicals left, pleased that their act had gone so well.
It was only later that they wondered what they had really accomplished. They had spent their fury on a stand-in. The real power lay elsewhere, untouched, unmoved.
____________________
***********I couldn't help but recall that cynical essay Monday when I tagged along with a group of advocates paying an unannounced call on the Northbrook office of Rep. Mark Kirk. They were members of organizations that want to liberalize Immigration laws, along with 10th District residents whose families are entangled in deportation nightmares. The North Shore Republican had blown off repeated requests for a meeting, they said, so they were going to confront him in person.
"Our goal is to talk with him about a solution ⦠for an earned path to citizenship," said Juan Jose Gonzalez of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights.
I wondered how serious he was, given that the coalition was planning to protest what they called Kirk's "very extreme" position on Immigration at a speech he had scheduled for later in the week. But the 11 people, with me and a Tribune photographer in tow, crowded into the front of Kirk's office and asked to see the congressman. The receptionist's eyes popped wide open, and he darted to the back. A moment later, out came Eric Elk, Kirk's chief of staff.
Kirk was meeting with constituents elsewhere, Elk said, and no, he couldn't return to the office to meet with the group that day.
"When can we get a meeting with the congressman?" Gonzalez asked.
"I'm not the scheduler," Elk said. "So the scheduler, I think, is working on some dates."
Gonzalez asked his fellow activists if they had heard from the scheduler. None had.
"Is it possible for you to call the scheduler now and see if the congressman can fit us in today?"
"As I said before, today's not going to work," Elk said.
The group then spent a few minutes lobbing measured but relentless criticism of Kirk, calling him unresponsive and insensitive to Immigration issues. Elk absorbed it all calmly, saying he would try to set up a future meeting but making no promises.
Then it was over. The activists thanked Elk and returned to the building lobby for a quick huddle.
"How do people feel about this?" Gonzalez asked.
Brian Wilkins, an Arlington Heights man whose Bulgarian wife and in-laws have been targeted for deportation, said he was energized.
"I'm glad we were able to get in there and at least mix it up with them," he said. "It's good to at least let them know that we're trying to do it the right way and to address the issues they won't listen to on the phone. And to bring a number of people into the office, I think, kind of sets the tone."
But Julie Savitt of Highland Park, whose husband was sent back to Guatemala in July after 13 years of trying to gain political asylum, was skeptical.
"I think it's a front," she said. "It's not going to go beyond [the staffers]."
Kirk, who said he was traveling to a meeting at the Shedd Aquarium when the group arrived, later told me that inviting a reporter to witness a confrontation was a Chicago-style tactic that didn't play well on the North Shore.
"Nice goes a long way up here," he said.
He added he was unaware of any attempts by the group or the residents to contact him, but said he was willing to discuss clearing a path for the undocumented to receive citizenship, a key desire of the coalition, but only if the nation's southern border is secured.
Both sides seemed pretty philosophical about the office ambush. Kirk said it was just part of politics, while Gonzalez said the activists' message had been successfully transmitted.
This was my take: While Monday's episode was far from the wild scene Tom Wolfe encountered in San Francisco, I felt I had witnessed essentially the same thingâa polite but meaningless dance of mau-mauing and flak catching, where everything was for show and nothing got done.
"You did your number and he did his number, and they didn't even have to stop the music," Wolfe wrote back in 1970, his words still fresh as a daffodil. "The band played on. ⦠"
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<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chicago/chi-kirk-protest-column-17-apr17,0,303839.story">http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/loca ... 3839.story</a><!-- m -->
707 Skokie Boulevard, Suite 350
Northbrook, IL 60062
Phone: 847-940-0202
Fax: 847-940-7143
Immigration protest: Political dance still all show 40 years later
John Keilman Local observer
April 17, 2009
Nearly 40 years ago, the dapper social critic Tom Wolfe published an essay titled "Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers," his phrase for a political minuet performed by activists and the government in radicalized San Francisco.
Young militants wanting to preserve a summer jobs program descended on a poverty office in their revolutionary best, hoping to freak out (or "mau-mau") The Man so spectacularly that terrified bureaucrats would shovel money at them.
They were greeted by a low-level civil servant (or "flak catcher"), whom they gleefully intimidated with glares and bluster. The staffer sputtered vague promises, and the radicals left, pleased that their act had gone so well.
It was only later that they wondered what they had really accomplished. They had spent their fury on a stand-in. The real power lay elsewhere, untouched, unmoved.
____________________
***********I couldn't help but recall that cynical essay Monday when I tagged along with a group of advocates paying an unannounced call on the Northbrook office of Rep. Mark Kirk. They were members of organizations that want to liberalize Immigration laws, along with 10th District residents whose families are entangled in deportation nightmares. The North Shore Republican had blown off repeated requests for a meeting, they said, so they were going to confront him in person.
"Our goal is to talk with him about a solution ⦠for an earned path to citizenship," said Juan Jose Gonzalez of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights.
I wondered how serious he was, given that the coalition was planning to protest what they called Kirk's "very extreme" position on Immigration at a speech he had scheduled for later in the week. But the 11 people, with me and a Tribune photographer in tow, crowded into the front of Kirk's office and asked to see the congressman. The receptionist's eyes popped wide open, and he darted to the back. A moment later, out came Eric Elk, Kirk's chief of staff.
Kirk was meeting with constituents elsewhere, Elk said, and no, he couldn't return to the office to meet with the group that day.
"When can we get a meeting with the congressman?" Gonzalez asked.
"I'm not the scheduler," Elk said. "So the scheduler, I think, is working on some dates."
Gonzalez asked his fellow activists if they had heard from the scheduler. None had.
"Is it possible for you to call the scheduler now and see if the congressman can fit us in today?"
"As I said before, today's not going to work," Elk said.
The group then spent a few minutes lobbing measured but relentless criticism of Kirk, calling him unresponsive and insensitive to Immigration issues. Elk absorbed it all calmly, saying he would try to set up a future meeting but making no promises.
Then it was over. The activists thanked Elk and returned to the building lobby for a quick huddle.
"How do people feel about this?" Gonzalez asked.
Brian Wilkins, an Arlington Heights man whose Bulgarian wife and in-laws have been targeted for deportation, said he was energized.
"I'm glad we were able to get in there and at least mix it up with them," he said. "It's good to at least let them know that we're trying to do it the right way and to address the issues they won't listen to on the phone. And to bring a number of people into the office, I think, kind of sets the tone."
But Julie Savitt of Highland Park, whose husband was sent back to Guatemala in July after 13 years of trying to gain political asylum, was skeptical.
"I think it's a front," she said. "It's not going to go beyond [the staffers]."
Kirk, who said he was traveling to a meeting at the Shedd Aquarium when the group arrived, later told me that inviting a reporter to witness a confrontation was a Chicago-style tactic that didn't play well on the North Shore.
"Nice goes a long way up here," he said.
He added he was unaware of any attempts by the group or the residents to contact him, but said he was willing to discuss clearing a path for the undocumented to receive citizenship, a key desire of the coalition, but only if the nation's southern border is secured.
Both sides seemed pretty philosophical about the office ambush. Kirk said it was just part of politics, while Gonzalez said the activists' message had been successfully transmitted.
This was my take: While Monday's episode was far from the wild scene Tom Wolfe encountered in San Francisco, I felt I had witnessed essentially the same thingâa polite but meaningless dance of mau-mauing and flak catching, where everything was for show and nothing got done.
"You did your number and he did his number, and they didn't even have to stop the music," Wolfe wrote back in 1970, his words still fresh as a daffodil. "The band played on. ⦠"
<!-- e --><a href="mailto:jkeilman@tribune.com">jkeilman@tribune.com</a><!-- e -->
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chicago/chi-kirk-protest-column-17-apr17,0,303839.story">http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/loca ... 3839.story</a><!-- m -->