Royko’s People When Radical Becomes Mainstream

By Rich Kozlovich

For those who aren’t old enough to remember Mike Royko let me tell you about him.   Mike Royko was a syndicated columnist out of Chicago, where he grew up.  Royko was an ethnic kid of Polish/Ukrainian origin.  Royko was the voice of “everyman Chicago”.  He was sarcastic, caustic, and totally skeptical of elitists and their thinking.  Royko took the stand that; as Studs Terkel pointed out; “somebody’s up against it”!  Royko wanted to make sure there was someone who would do something about it.  Him!  A healthy attitude in my opinion! 

It was clear that Royko had very little respect for politicians and hated political correctness.  He hated hypocrisy, special privileges for special people, and was all about basic fair play. Everything had become about superficial imagery and money and he hated it.  But, Mike’s gone now and the problems he was so concerned about have only become exacerbated by time.   So where does that leave "Royko's people"?

Royko was sensitive to people who were suffering,  and he had a way of cutting right past the smoke screen of nonsense spewed out by those who are prominent and powerful and right into the fire. Have we lost sight of the need for that? Are we capable of seeing past the activity that has become a substitute for accomplishment?  Are we capable of standing up on our hind legs and saying; “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore?” As someone once said: “It’s a falsehood; history doesn’t repeat itself; people just fail to grasp the lessons of history”.

We have the world’s governments spending billions and billions of dollars on projects that they claim are to save the world’s environment.  Money they don’t have!  They pass laws to make the world change from perfectly operating power generation systems to systems that are completely incapable of meeting current energy needs, let alone future needs. 

Two years ago people in Eastern Europe froze to death due to a lack of sufficient energy production.  All due to their governments desire to reduce CO2 emissions, based on the false premise that CO2 is causing global warming.  Yet all these ‘alternative’ power generating schemes are failures.  They have always been failures.  And they will always be failures unless there is some kind of massive technological breakthrough that currently isn’t even on the horizon.  Result; people die, people suffer and people pay through the nose for the energy they are supplied.  All based on lies from the green movement.

We have placed unaccountable bureaucrats in charge of determining what pesticides are to be used even when we know, and have known from the very beginning, they are basing their rules on ideology and not science.  We shouldn’t have to be even discussing this reality.   We now know the EPA has sweetheart deals with the green movement called “Sue and Settle”.  The greenies sue the EPA and the EPA gives a half hearted attempt to defend itself and then settles with the activists to get power they want that Congress never intended for them to have.  The result?  We have people suffering all over the world from the lack of inexpensive, effective chemistry that saves lives from diseases and starvation.  In the U.S. we suffer from an ever growing bed bug plague, yet the EPA and the green movement continue going down their insane path with speculative claims that pesticides represent grave dangers; speculations that have no relationship to reality. 

We have bureaucrats impose serious limitations on people’s use of their own property in total violation of their Constitutional rights based on the whim of some self important government employee.   And then they claim they have no legal recourse because the courts have no jurisdiction over their actions. 

When radical thinking becomes mainstream this is what happens to “Royko’s people”.  Because it’s average people just trying to live their lives who suffer from the actions of the elite, the arrogant and the insane.  Becky Gerritson told Congress; “I’m not here as a serf or a vassal. I’m not begging my lords for mercy. I’m a born free American woman. Wife, mother, and citizen. And I’m telling my government that you’ve forgotten your place. It’s not your responsibility to look out for my wellbeing and to monitor my speech. It’s not your right to assert an agenda. Your post, the post that you occupy, exists to preserve American liberty. You’ve sworn to perform that duty, and you have faltered…”

You have forgotten your place”, sent electric waves through anyone who heard it.  Aren’t you glad someone said it?  I'm just sorry that Royko wasn't here to see it.  He would have loved it!