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SEIFFE:  The April Fools

Monday, April 10, 2006

By Ralf Seiffe

April starts with a day on which the quick amongst us are encouraged to play tricks on each other.  Most are small stunts that victims easily debunk but others are truly inspired.  One of this year’s best was a furniture company advertising they were renaming Wrigley Field the Walter E. Smithefield.  Very funny and when I need a sofa, I’ll remember these guys don’t take themselves too seriously.  This sort of foolin’ is stuff that makes life fun.  We should have more of it and the best way to do this is to extend April Fool’s Day to April Fool’s Month.  

News from our various capitols tell me this is an idea whose time has come.  Everywhere, it looks like our politicians, in a rare instance of leading public opinion, have already adopted greater foolishness.  In Springfield , the Legislature is ready to pass a new budget that once again fails to adequately fund state pensions.  To the public sector workers, Blagojevich, Madigan and Jones are saying “April Fools!” This is a trick the state’s workers haven’t figured out….yet.  They will sometime in the future when a new generation of taxpayers says “Enough! The joke’s on you.”  

Congress isn’t exempt from playing tricks, either.  An idea blossoming in that August body tells us they really are a gang of April tricksters.  Having failed to control our borders since the Bracerro guest worker scheme was abandoned in the mid-1960’s, they now tell us that they’ve given up and will outsource enforcement to employers.  By holding employers criminally liable when hiring illegals, they think the market for low-cost labor will dry up just like it did when we passed Simpson-Mazolli in the 1980’s.  

The April Fool’s Immigration Compromise so breathlessly reported last week asked us to believe that Congress was now going to get serious about enforcing the prerogatives of our sovereignty.  One wonders how the federal government will suddenly remember this duty and, at the same time, tolerate sanctuary cities, like Chicago .  Perhaps the next time federal agents visit the mayor, they can put this on their agenda.  April Fools!   

If our legislators were really serious about enforcement, they should recognize that employers are not the only beneficiaries of undocumented workers.  Some labor union officials are salivating at a windfall of new, unskilled laborers who could be organized to pay for their extravagant lifestyles.  One interesting April Fool’s trick could involve the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.  They should visit the Laborer’s International Union of North America; it’s not hard to find, strategically located just up 16th Street from the White House.  For fun, President Bush should send his agents to see their president and find out if he actually knows of the illegals he referenced in his January National Press Club speech and where they are really working.  Imagine the political fun George Bush would have playing this trick!  

Most of us have a good sense of humor when we’re the victim of these April tricks, usually laughing but secretly wondering if the bleachers at the new Walter E. Smithefield will be upholstered.  On the other hand, some of us don’t appreciate the April tricking, at all.  Ed Burke, the husband of our newest Illinois Supreme Court judge, noticed that the Sequoia Voting Systems machines that performed so miserably during March’s primary election are made in Venezuela .  One of their models, not used here, reportedly can be “adjusted” after the polls have closed.  No doubt, this is the “Jimmy Carter” model. 

Burke is one of the savviest Chicago politicians but he doesn’t get the joke.  He probably noticed that the president of Venezuela , Hugo Chavez, has been interfering in elections in Peru and Mexico .  With the experience of extending Chicago Democrat’s influence into the suburbs, Burke saw the analogy and apparently concluded that by controlling the voting machines, Chavez must be manipulating our local elections. Despite Burke’s two hour grilling of the company’s president, his colleagues called the alderman’s notion a “crack-pot theory.” I disagree and would bet Burke knows all the signs of vote manipulation.  I’m comforted that the dean of the Chicago City Council is out there protecting my franchise.  Okay…..April Fools!

© 2006 Ralf Seiffe

Ralf Seiffe advises business start-ups and product launches from Chicago, Illinois and is a political analyst and columnist for the Illinois Leader and Illinois Review.