Congressional District 11—open for a new congress person from mostly Cuyahoga County—was really the creation of Carl Stokes: the 21st Congressional District.

Stokes, an Ohio State representative in the early 1960s, worked to create a congressional district that would elect Ohio’s first black U.S. representative.

He meant it for himself.

But legal matters delayed the formation of the 21st Congressional District until the late 1960s.

By that time Carl was mayor of Cleveland. So his brother, Louis, ran and won with Carl’s blessing.

There was a story I was told that the day Lou entered his Congressional office, Carl took the seat at his desk. Mother Louise told Carl to “get out” of the chair, “That’s your brother’s seat.”

Carl became the force that made the 21st District seat powerful by forming the 21st District Caucus.

But when he left Cleveland after serving two terms as mayor, the caucus lost its power, other than to keep the district in his brother’s hands for 30 years.

That power has been frittered away.

The height of its power likely was the campaign against the sin tax for the sports facilities in early 1990.

Carl became a municipal judge after he returned to Cleveland. As such he personally couldn’t be the public force of the 21st District Caucus. But I have no doubt that the caucus openly opposed the sin tax, pushed by Mayor Michael White and County Commissioner Tim Hagan. My suspicion was that Carl had a hand in that.

I remember speaking at a 21st District rally against the tax. I presented facts and figures. But following me was one of Carl’s loyal supporters, the irascible Bert Jennings. He gave a rousing, get-them-on-their-feet speech. He moved the crowd, as Carl would have done.

The county-vote was very close. The winning margin county-wide was only 1 percent as 51 percent voted favorably.

The city vote, however, was thumbs down, a testament to the caucus’s power.

Now, the district in its misshapen form, reaching down to Akron from Cleveland, will elect a new rep.

The open seat has drawn a large crowd of mostly known black politicians and, so far, one white candidate. All Democrats for a primary in August.

Here are some of the names: Nina Turner, Jeff Johnson, Shirley Smith, John Barnes Jr., Shontel Brown, all black candidates, and Brian Flannery, white.

It is a test of black political organization.

The possibility that if all black candidates remain in the contest and only one white, Flannery, does, the congressional district Carl Stokes help create more than 50 years ago will be no more.

This should not happen. This would not happen if the Caucus had been kept a meaningful, powerful voice for the black community.

But it has been allowed to wither, become only the home of the occupant, not of the community.

It is time again for strong, progressive leadership in the 11th district (21st District, as created), not the comfy home of office holders as it has become.

I believe, as a voter in the district, I’ll pull for Nina Turner, a progressive and hopefully a uniter.

This town needs a shaking.

What will the economic issues of this mayoral election be?

My bet is that you will never know.

Why?

Because the candidates will follow the traditional bullshit that is meant to capture your vote. They will argue what’s unimportant.

Nothing will really change.

Two major projects—one nearing completion, the other in planning—tell us that nothing new will happen.

The first is the Opportunity Corridor road project.

Opportunity for whom?

We’re being led to believe it will be for a good portion of the neglected black community.

Oh, yeah. From a west side highway to the door of the Cleveland Clinic. That will help the black community. New jobs. For West Siders?

The other just surfaced—the whatever bridge from the city’s historic malls through to the lakefront. To First Energy Stadium, to the Rock Hall, to the Science Center. And whatever can be developed by those with pull. Indeed, could this be the excuse for a new stadium for the misplaced lakefront facility?

You may notice that the football stadium and the rock hall are both publicly financed for private interests.

It’s the Cleveland way. Really, it’s the way of most cities.

Give to your wealthy. Don’t they deserve your tribute?

This is a money town. This is a poverty town.

Yes, it can be both at the same time.

I took a look at the latest value of our professional sports teams. Billions is the operative word.

The Cleveland Browns value these days $2.35 BILLION.

Yet we (citizens) provide, essentially free of charge, their place of business—the non-property tax paying football stadium.

By the way, the owners, DON’T NEED OUR CHARITY. But they don’t leave it.

They are all billionaires!

Browns owner Jimmy Haslam’s net worth is put at $2.8 BILLION.

These stats don’t often make our sports pages. Or TV News.

The Cleveland Cavaliers are now worth $1.74 BILLION.

Its playing facilities at the Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse (also used for other profit venues) is essentially free. (Teams took naming rights in a deal when the Gateway Economic Development Corp.—public body—faced bankruptcy and the teams subsidized its operating costs.)

The owner—Dan Gilbert—a billionaire 151.9 times over. A very, very, very wealthy man. Amazingly wealthy.

The Cleveland Indians value is $1.160 BILLION.

Owned by Larry Dolan—net worth $4.7 billion and Paul Dolan, $4.6 billion.

Nice of Clevelanders to help out these guys by giving them First Energy Stadium.

And then we’re told that $15 an hour for a worker would ruin the economy.

Too much for business to carry. Can’t do.

Wow, how they lie for selfish profit.

The blame for this inequity that won’t go away belongs to both political leadership (or lack of it really) and a robust, well-funded private sector that steals from the public treasury. It includes the foundations, the fiscal and bond counsels and the strong law firms here.

They’re a beautiful orchestra and they play an expensive tune.

Public funds that should be going into schools, recreation centers, parks are going in the pockets of sports owners and players

The balance is out of whack and it still goes in the wrong direction.

Who will change it?

Not a candidate for Cleveland mayor.

Norm Edwards, head of a group known as Black Contractors, lifted a finger in the air to test which way the wind was blowing for a FIFTH term for Frank Jackson.

I doubt very much if this was anything more than a testing of the velocity of wind for another Jackson run.

The next day it snowed a surprising amount, if that’s any indication.

It was April Fool’s day after all.

It’s been noted that Jackson hasn’t been raising much of a campaign chest to run for mayor.

But the truth is, he doesn’t need cash.

However, he does need a miracle judging the sour taste in so many mouths over the city’s sour mood. One that says, why bother—it doesn’t matter who’s mayor.

Probably the reason Jackson has been able to stay around so long. Civic depression.

If Jackson really feels he can eke out another term, he should wonder why so many are jumping into the race this time.

It suggests to anyone with a brain: Mayor Frank has overstayed his welcome.

But he’s not like most any politician. I used to visit his council office at City Hall from time to time. I never felt he had higher ambition—to be council president or mayor. Certainly not mayor forever.

I was obviously wrong.

He was unlike most council members. When a council member came into the hearing room as a committee was meeting, invariably the member would take a seat at the table and participate. Not Jackson. He would more likely stand apart and just watch. Always apart. Not a team player. He even denied Mayor White the needed vote to pass the key legislation to start the construction of Browns stadium. He told me that he said he wasn’t voting for it and he wasn’t changing his mind the night of the vote. It fell one vote short.

He didn’t play the game.

The growing slate doesn’t seem that impressive.

Council President Kevin Kelley will run.

But he will have to carry the burden of having given the finger to 20,000 signers of a petition to put the multi-million dollar Cavalier’s arena dress-up on the ballot.

Kelley gave the finger to those petition signers.

Guess who will make that as significant an issue as selling Muny (Public Power) Light to First Energy?

Yes, Dennis.

Having been around for a long time and having watched Dennis Kucinich, there is no politician still active who can play on the same field and not get bloodied.

Justin Bibb seems to be the candidate of those citizens who have been too long making the decisions for the city. And he’s backed by another mayor, or former mayor, Michael White, I’m told.

That and a lot of cash will allow him to be in the race but his lack of political experience is a serious handicap.

White should remind Bibb that when he started to run for mayor back in the 1970s he went to live with a public housing family.

Bibb lives downtown, though he’s running as a neighborhood candidate.

Basheer Jones will make waves but not sail far. Too arrogant.

Ross DeBillo has the desire but also lacks experience.

Zach Reed could be the one candidate with the political experience to surprise the field. I will never forget how he defeated a Stokes—as strong a political name as you could find – in his first run for Council after being given the ward by the retiring member. He’s had problems but not recently. I don’t think he can be outworked either.

The question may be: Who will see this as a weak field and want to jump in.

A strong woman might fit that perfectly.

Bonus No. 1: Eight more Phillip Reed videos by Barney Hayter.

Bonus No. 2: Now’s Not The Time To Fix America’s Gun Problem, Says GOP In Familiar Refrain.

I stopped in at Royal Park Wine for a bit of wisdom yesterday and discovered that Joe Soussou is now sharing his knowledge on his own YouTube channel. Well done you, Joe.

Bonus No. 1: Now do you believe it?

Bonus No. 2: Stephan Pastis slams a triple and my side hurts.

Bonus No. 3: Ze steenking bears have gotten really good at ice sculpture.

Bonus No.4: I was happy with my life until others showed me I wasn’t.

In this morning’s North Royalton Post, I have a letter to the editor—Karen DeLong’s question is spot on—agreeing with a woman holding up Naomi Klein and Robert Francis Kennedy as examples of liberals warning of an American descent into totalitarianism under the Harris-Biden administration. Maybe. But that isn’t why I said she asked a very good question.

What I wanted to illustrate is that Americans like myself and DeLong have far more in common than corporatist elites running the Pro-Business Pro-War party want us to recognize. We need to talk to each other and be able to see that. I wrote:

Karen DeLong, writing about a WND article on Naomi Klein and John F. Kennedy, asked: “How come these two liberals can see what’s going on in our country, when the liberals who read our Trading Post can’t?”

I can’t speak for the liberals you ask your question of, but I can say, writing as a Progressive/Populist, that your question is spot on. I can see a political union of the right and left coming in the near future fueled by many other like-thinkers such as yourself asking this same question of those who pretend to represent them in their legislatures and executive offices.

Conservatives (aka Republicans) and Liberals (aka Democrats) have been for most of my lifetime two branches of the same Corporatist ideology pretending to fight politically to disguise the reality that they are actually the right and left wings of the same Pro-Business Pro-War party. We can all see the truth of this by looking at the two issues they always seem to come together on in a bipartisan manner: legislation that favors big business and legislation that throws our fighting men and women in harm’s way.

Klein and Kennedy are just two of many progressive/populists thinkers—I would also commend to you the writings of Matt Taibbi, Thomas Frank and Glenn Greenwald, among others—who have been sounding the alarm for more than a decade. To learn much more I would suggest beginning with Klein’s 2007 book: The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, and Frank’s 2020 text: The People, No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism.

No responses yet.

Bonus No. 1: Acting is not art.

Bonus No. 2: This isn’t really news, but still…

(If you’re quick, you might still find the full show here.)

Bonus No. 1: You can get so much more done!

Bonus No. 2: In Praise of Bad Weather.

Bonus No. 3: Why Stonehenge was abandoned.

Bonus No. 4: Story Corps—One Small Step…

Bonus No. 4: Ted Rall—Comics that make you go hmmmm…?remacy

So, Oliver Burkeman left The Guardian back in September and launched The Imperfectionist where he has published, so far, nine essays very much in the vein of his Guardian columns. His most recent—Too Many Needles—addresses a common challenge: So many books, so little time. Spoiler Alert: There is no solution, so get over it.

The essay is very good, but I dropped a note to Burkeman wondering if he understood the irony there. You see, there are more than a few books on my own Books-To-Read-Before-I-Die list—the problem is so universal that James Mustich wrote a book on the topic—that he has suggested over the years. Burkeman ledes:

I’m going to take a wild guess here and say that you, like me, have a large pile (or digital equivalent) of books or articles you’ve been meaning to get around to reading, plus maybe a long queue of podcast episodes to which you’d love to listen, if only you had the time. It’s the archetypal “first-world problem”, I know. But one worth reflecting on – because it’s a microcosm of a broader mistake that makes it more stressful than in needs to be to build a fulfilling and productive life: the problem of Too Many Needles.

There was a time, possibly sometime between the burning of the library at Alexandria and the beginning of the 18th century, a person might reasonably be able to actually read the important books. Thomas Jefferson had about 3,000 books in his library and 20th century scholars compiled lists of Great Books ranging from Charles Elliot’s 51 volumes to the 2,400 volumes on Harold Bloom’s list. I could probably read 51, but 2,400? Fuggedaboutit. The Internet only made matters worse. So much so that his attempt to curate the web drove Andrew Sullivan into the woods. Burkeman continues:

It’s amusing to reflect that at an earlier stage in the history of the web, information overload was widely held to be a temporary issue. Yes, true, for the time being we were getting deluged by a zillion irrelevant blog posts, emails and news updates. But that wouldn’t last, because soon we’d have better technology for finding what we wanted, while disregarding the rest. The real trouble, according to the leading techno-optimist Clay Shirky, wasn’t information overload, but “filter failure”. We needed – and we’d eventually get – more sophisticated ways to filter the wheat from the online chaff. And then we’d no longer feel overwhelmed.

Yeah… no. I assume you’d agree that the problem of your to-read pile is very much not one of filter failure. It’s not that you’re deluged with things you don’t care about, and need help figuring out what’s truly of interest. It’s that you’re overwhelmed by things you do want to read. All the books on your bedside table, all those bookmarks in your browser, or articles saved to Instapaper—all of them seem like they might be right up your street, or crucial to your professional success, or might contain some nugget of wisdom you’d benefit from absorbing. The problem, as the critic Nicholas Carr explained, isn’t filter failure. It’s filter success. In a world of effectively infinite information, the better you get at sifting the wheat from the chaff, the more you end up crushed beneath a never-ending avalanche of wheat.

So, what do we do? In the end, suffer. You will die with many, many unfinished lists. That’s life But here’s what Burkeman recommends to ease the suffering a bit:

You have to take a stab at deciding what matters most, among your various creative passions/life goals/responsibilities – and then do that, while acknowledging that you’ll inevitably be neglecting many other things that matter too.

To return to information overload: this means treating your “to read” pile like a river (a stream that flows past you, and from which you pluck a few choice items, here and there) instead of a bucket (which demands that you empty it).

Tough, but doable. Yes?

Bonus No. 1: Matt Taibbi: The Sovietization of the American Press.

Bonus No. 2: As Do We All…

Bonus No. 3: Glenn Greenwald: Journalists Start Demanding Substack Censor its Writers.

Bonus No. 4: Announcement: New Home For “Useful Idiots.”

Bonus No. 1: With a Second War on Terror Looming, a New Film Explores… the First.

I remember when I once wrote a piece about George Forbes that was considered “too favorable” by an alternative press editor.

He felt that it would confuse people.

Why?

Because I hadn’t really been kind in my coverage of Forbes. He held power over City Council from 1974 through 1989. And to simply say, he held power, is to minimize the grip on how things would go.

He intended to remain in City Council very long.

He told Frank Keegan in the late ’70s:

Not very much longer. I have come to the conclusion that you do what you can. Like Dr. King said, ‘I’ve been to the Mountain top.’ I went to see Ahmed (Evans) at Auburndale and 123rd Street. I was the last guy to see him, along with Walter Beach (former Browns player). I talked to him and told him to cool it and I would be back. When I went back, I was shot at like I was a rabbit.

That was the day of the Glenville shootout, July 23, 1968.

Forbes was then Mayor Carl Stokes’ front man.

Now, George Forbes will be 90 years old on April 4. He has led a long, successful life.

I likely have spent more time writing about him than any other Cleveland figure.

You simply couldn’t avoid it if you were a reporter in his years of power.

The truth is that there were aspects of George Forbes that you couldn’t not like.

To cover City Hall during his time, you couldn’t avoid him.

I once wrote a piece in 1982, “My Monday with George. Better than dinner with Andre.”

“Each Monday George gives life lessons, rare performances,” I continued.

I wrote of two political moves he made.

In the first, he passed a 25 percent water rate hike everyone was against with now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t deftness. He walked away from the meeting looking disappointed. The absence of applause reveals the lack of appreciation…

The rate hike of 25 percent followed one of 15 percent. And it was assumed that all other 20 councilmen were opposed.

Forbes tilted the outcome by feigning outrage that Mayor George Voinovich would lay off water department workers. Somehow many of those workers showed up en masse at the meeting. George “ranted and raged” at possible layoffs as “a political thing.”

Now he set it as a Council vs. administration, not a rate hike vote.

“It’s bullshit and we are not going to be pressured… This business of politics, you can’t beat us at that. You can’t beat me at my game,” as he slams Ed Richard, then Voinovich’s person at the table.

Then to toss some confusion into what the meeting is about, Forbes talks to one of the water department people in the audience, a question seemingly out of nowhere.

“Butch,” says Forbes, “how long you been with the city now?”

He doesn’t wait for a answer. He addresses Richard again: You ain’t going to lay off Butch. I’ll tell you right now…”

Another slight diversion.

Forbes ask an administration person: “Is the mayor there?”

I guess he expected a “no” answer. But it’s “Yes.”

Now in full command, I wrote, Forbes then says, “I don’t want him.”

Call the roll, says the Council President.

“It’s 10 to zip, without a word of protest.”

I wrote: He had stopped on a dime, reversed directions and the dime was standing on end.”

Forbes and Carl Stokes were the principal black politicians as Cleveland changed from an old white ethnic town in the civil rights era. Stokes was still a creature of the rights era.

I remember when Stokes returned to town. I ran into him on the street and he invited to me see the renovation of what would be his new law office. He said to me, “You didn’t think I came back to be a councilman did you?”

I certainly didn’t.

It was also apparent that Stokes still wanted to taste the power he had held. But his time had passed.

He had been eclipsed by George Forbes.

Stokes struck out at Forbes in 1985 with a bitter attack.

“He has turned out to be a foul-mouthed, unregenerated politician of the most despicable sort and I think he ought to be out of office.”

He went on to charge Forbes with helping some with rewards for himself.

It so happened that soon after his attack, Stokes, as chief judge had to appear before Forbes to have the court’s budget approved.

It was a scene made for a TV drama.

I wrote:

Forbes came to the table quietly, looking more stern than usual, a tense frown. There were no words by him to open the meeting.

Forbes then passed over several other budgets to summon Stokes, who had taken a front row seat.

Forbes seemed unusually grave, tense muscles in his forehead revealing his intense unease.

Had this been a year earlier the two might have joked. But to Stokes Forbes was ‘Mr. Chairman.’ To Forbes, Stokes was ‘Sir.’ There were no smiles, no personal words at all.

The evidence of animosity between the two was more in what didn’t happen and what wasn’t said by two old friends.

It was clear that Forbes wanted this man out of his sphere—quickly.

‘Any questions?’ asked Forbes after a reading by (Merce) Cotner of the basic figures of the budget. Then almost immediately, ‘You may leave, sir.’

But there were question from Council members. Then Stokes asked to address the body but it was only to ask for extra bailiffs.

As more questions were asked, Forbes became irritated. “John,” he address a member, “Come on, let’s wind it up.” Gary Kucinich then prolonged it with another question, which Stokes took concise language to answer.

Forbes ended his career by leaving Council to run for mayor. He lost to Michael White. That changed the nature of City Hall politics. White became a different kind of servant to the town’s power people.

Forbes became a part-time professor in addition to his lawyering.

I was surprised when he asked me to address his Baldwin-Wallace political science students. But I went anyway. Twice actually.

At one of the sessions, I brought along a blow-up photo of Forbes grabbing me as he tossed me out of a meeting.

I wasn’t sure what response I’d get from him. But I wasn’t surprised at all at the response.

“Pass it around,” he said and the photo went around the room.

You couldn’t embarrass George. He knows himself.

Back in the dark ages of blogging, I suggested to George Nemeth that ought to be reading an early blogger’s posts and George replied: I don’t have to because you do. That’s how I feel about Matt Taibbi. There is so much I don’t have to read because he does. For instance, before this morning I had no idea who Martin Gurri was. Now I do.

Gurri, Taibbi tells me, is a former CIA analyst and author of the 2014 book: The Revolt of The Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium. Writing in Interview with Martin Gurri, “A Short-Term Pessimist and Long-Term Optimist,” Taibbi ledes:

Gurri’s book, which outlines the inherent contradictions between traditional hierarchies of power and the demystifying power of the Internet, is compellingly predictive on a number of levels, but it’s easy to see why some mainstream thinkers might look askance. He says things that are obviously true, but that no one wants to hear, the worst possible combination.

Ask any mainstream media critic—say, Margaret Sullivan of the Washington Post—what needs to be done to rebuild trust in news organizations, and the answer might be a combination of, “We need to do ideological litmus tests before conducting interviews” and “We need to boycott Fox News,” without so much as a nod to, “We maybe have to stop screwing up, too.”

In politics, media, financial services, medicine even, there’s an institutional unwillingness to admit that their trust problem might in any way be self-inflicted. A central premise of Gurri’s book is that the public, around the world, is reacting to real institutional shortcomings. He even has a chapter called, “The Failure of Government.” At the same time, he finds some of that failure in the habit of setting expectations too high, deceiving the public into misunderstanding “the reality of what democratic governments can achieve.”

The non-subscriber version of the interview is, of course, abbreviated, but still these two exchanges caught my attention. First:

TK: You referenced the repeat appearance in protest movements of imagery from “V for Vendetta,” a movie that ends with the destruction of the old regime, and everything else will “take care of itself.” Do you think there’s disinterest in the form of future governance among political activists because they’re pessimistic about actually taking power? Or is it optimism: if they overthrow established authority, problems will vanish? Or is it the quasi-ironic/nihilistic spirit of these times, where even the most capable people don’t like to imagine themselves as power-holders? Where in our society are people trained for actual governance?

Gurri: The posture of negation that edges into nihilism is a function of the structure of the public itself. The public in the digital age is many, not one. It’s fractured into mutually hostile war-bands. The only way to unify and mobilize these groups is to emphasize what they stand against: the system, the elites, the established order. Governance would require organization, leadership, programs—but all those things would once again divide the public into its component parts. So the posture remains eternally against. Even when protesters win concessions—as in France with the Yellow Vests, for example—they will not take yes for an answer.

Your last question is a very interesting and troubling one. In the digital age, people are trained to express themselves, to perform in a way that will grow their following, rather than to govern. (Think Donald Trump.) Yuval Levin has written that our institutions were once formative—they shaped the character and discipline of those who joined them—but are now performative, mere platforms for elite self-expression and personal branding. I completely agree. Outside of the military, which still demands a code of conduct from its members, I don’t see where people are trained to govern today.

And second:

TK: You speak in the book of being worried for the future of representative democracy. How much more or less bleak does the picture look now, after four years of Donald Trump? It looks possible that his legacy will be the delegitimization of electoral politics, as traditional hierarchies have almost rallied to something like an authoritarian counterrevolution in response to him. If people have lost faith in authority, have elites also lost faith in the ability of populations to hold up their end of the bargain in democracies?

Gurri: First, I hold that Trump was a symptom — an effect rather than a cause. He possessed an outlandish personality, and that brought its own effects, but one can easily find Trump-like populists all over the world. Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, for example, makes Trump seem like an etiquette book by comparison. Globally, the public is looking for alternatives to the ruling elites, and these populists, by their very outrageousness, are signaling that they are not them.

Second, the elites, as I said before, are stuck in a sterile nostalgia for the 20th century. They are at war with the world as it actually is today, and I imagine they would love to disband the public and summon a more obedient version. Hence the panic about fake news and the tinkering with control over content.

When Trump won in 2016, the elites refused to accept his legitimacy. He was said to be the tool of Vladimir Putin and an aspiring tyrant. When Trump lost in 2020, he and many of his followers refused to accept the legitimacy of that election. A Trumpist mob sacked the Capitol building to demonstrate its rage. None of this is good for democracy or the legitimacy of our political institutions.

But let’s look at the big picture. Trump won in 2016, and, in his inimitable style, ran the US government for four years. He lost in 2020 and moved out of the White House to make room for Joe Biden, just as he was supposed to do. Now Biden is in charge. He gets to run the government. The drama of democracy has generated lots of turbulence but remarkably little violence. The old institutions are battered and maladapted but they have deep roots. The American people may be undergoing a psychotic episode, but they are fundamentally sensible.

That last sentence, that we, the American people, are in the midst of a psychotic episode is chilling. Yet Gurri remains optimistic in the long run. Like John Astin’s Buddy, Gurri expects that we’ll eventually be able to say that we’re Feeling much better now.

Bonus No. 1: Off-road, off-grid: the modern nomads wandering America’s back country.

Bonus No. 2: I generally don’t like Bill Maher; occasionally, however, he’s spot on.

Bonus No. 3: Dogs Can’t Help Falling in Love.

Bonus No. 1: Mail-in voting did not swell turnout or boost Democrats, study finds.

Bonus No. 2: We should all carry a stack of these. They seem really handy.

Bonus No. 3: Top Democrat Jim Clyburn: ‘No way we’d let filibuster deny voting rights.

On Sunday, 2 January 1972, Ralph Joseph Perk became Cleveland’s 52nd mayor and the first Republican to be elected to that office since the second World War. Perk would be remembered for this ribbon cutting, but Roldo Bartimole knew that there were much bigger issues for the new mayor to handle and he got right down to business.

In his 3 January 1972 issue of Point Of Viəw (volume 4, number 13), Roldo, under the headline—Able To Produce $6 Billion In Profits Over Decade, Now Finds Itself Pauper Case. why?—ledes:

Would you believe that an entity that could produce more than $6,000,000,000 in profits, pay out more than $3,000,000,000 and have another $3 billion to invest in capital projects could today be a pauper organization on the verge of bankruptcy?

That that organization could be mired in self pity, spiritually depressed and pitifully disillusioned?

That it could be physically disintegrating?

That its board chairman must tell its work staff that it must endure further employee cuts? And that the chairman cannot find any new resources to keep present operations functioning?

The organization is the Cleveland community.

Cleveland’s financial crisis is as real as Disneyland.

This was a bold move for Roldo. The theme was not a new one for him, but he had not before hit the issue of wealth inequality fostered by Capitalism in the United States so directly. Roldo asked:

If this community and its people can produce such wealth during the past decade, why is it that there is not enough money in the community to pay for even minimum services to protect the health and safety of its citizens?

The short answer is greed, but I have come to believe that the people who produce collect the wealth suffer from a kind of psychological illness akin to that which leads people to become hoarders. Our über wealthy, Roldo’s elites live in a capitalist world where wealth is the only scorecard. They engage in pissing contests where the length of the numbers after the dollar sign are a stand in for the strength of your stream. Their success, their self-worth, is literally their self-worth. Roldo continues:

There is no financial crisis in Cleveland. There is merely a need to distribute the wealth of Cleveland among its people, rather than a handful of wealthy.

Why then is there no revenue to operate the city? And why are the near suburban cities almost in the same position as Cleveland? And why will Shaker Heights and Cleveland Heights be in the same position soon?

No reason other than the enormous greed of corporate Cleveland and the leeches that live off the dividends it produces.

And the politicians are all bought, if not directly, indirectly. Perk is no different from his predecessor. Carl Stokes opted for a city payroll tax he knew was inequitable. Perk, instead of seeking a tax increase (so far), demands severe sacrifices primarily from the people least able to afford it.

Further, Perk perpetuates the myth that Cleveland has no money to provide needed services and the solution to the city’s financial needs lie in the direction of service cutbacks and reducing waste. But never, never does the solution lie in making those enjoying the benefits of city services pay the bill.

The classic response is, of course: If you raise the cost of doing business in a community by raising taxes, at some point the wealthy will just move. America was not quite there in 1972, but it very soon would be. This is the argument that has pitted community against community, state against state and, ultimately nation against nation as multinational corporations threaten to take their business (and their jobs) elsewhere.

This continues today with businesses abandoning communities in search of tax breaks. Perhaps the most egregious examples came in 2017 under the ludicrous Make America Great Again era of defeated President Donald John Trump with faux bidding wars among communities started by Amazon and Foxconn’s $3 billion con of Minnesota. “People,” Roldo wrote, “are getting angry.” He continues:

The pressure is so severe that even David Rockefeller, chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank, has felt the need to speak about it at the Advertising Council dinner recently and his talk was partially reprinted in the Wall Street Journal:

Considering the seriousness and growing prevalence in some quarters of this (anti-business) attitude, it seems to me that businessmen have no choice but to respond by becoming reformers themselves, making a conscious effort to adapt the operation to the market system to our changing social, political and technological environment.

The question really comes down to this: Will business leaders seize the initiative to make the necessary changes and to take on new responsibilities voluntarily, or will they wait until these are thrust upon them by law?

Rockefeller isn’t talking about real change, of course, but rather a need by business—a need by Capitalism—to throw a sufficient heap of scraps to the people making the most noise so as to quiet the barking and, in so doing, stave off the tumbrels. Rockefeller continues:

Because of the growing pressure for greater corporate accountability I can foresee the day when, in addition to the financial statement, certified by independent accountants, corporations may be required to publish a ‘social audit’ similarly certified. In anticipation of this, businesses should seek ways of reflecting in their accounting procedures their concern for the less tangible elements of the quality of life.

In the midst of our current pandemic, I wonder if Rockefeller would have had the balls to call out the insane profits of Amazon and Jeff Bezos’ mountain of wealth? Under the tag Money-Makers, Roldo lists the profits and cash dividends of the worst offenders: Cleveland’s wealthiest corporations. The top ten on the list were:

Cleveland's 10-Wealthiest Corporations in 1971

In total, the 50, Cleveland-based, corporations raked in $6,194,490,000 and paid cash dividends of $3,199,890,000.

In a brief notice under THE CLEVELAND PAPERS, Roldo writes:

A set of papers dealing with the Cleveland power structure is now available for $1.50. It examines Cleveland’s ruling class as it relates to various problem areas, including health, consumer affairs, housing, pollution, politics and the job place.

The Papers are produced by The Illuminating Company, a radical Cleveland research group.

The book is well worth the price and could serve as the basis for a class on power structure operations.

While there are no authors listed on the document, I do know that in addition to Roldo, Barbara Ehrenreich wrote at least one part of the report. The table of contents lists:

1. The Business Oligarchy;
2. Foundations—Tools Of The Oligarchy;
3. Cleveland’s Medial Empire;
4. Housing;
5. Consumer Concerns—Who’s Responsible;
6. Taxes: No Robin Hood For The Poor;
7. The Fouled Environment; and
8. Workplace Oppression.

When the 25th Street Bookstore closed I acquired a number of copies of the document and I still have two copies left for anyone who thinks $5 is not too much to pay for a bit of Cleveland history. (A steal at that price since A. I may be in possession of the only surplus issues on the planet and B. Adjusted for inflation, $1.50 would be $9.59 in 2021 prices.) If you’re interested, let me know in the comment section below.

In his 17 January 1971 issue of Point Of Viəw (volume 4, number 14), Roldo followed on on the general case of rapacious greed by Cleveland’s corporate elites made in the previous issue and devotes the issue to a very specific tax-money grab: the insane scheme to build a jetport on Lake Erie. This would prove to be the first in a long list of such raids on public coffers—including a billion-dollar bridge to Canada. Roldo, writing in Jetport In Lake A Corporate Profit Scheme. So, Don’t Do It In The Lake—Or Anywhere, ledes:

The ability of one group to set priorities for a community enables that sector to derive enormous unearned profits. The Greater Cleveland Growth Association, fronting for corporate interests, has pushed to the front of the community priority list its plan for a Jetport in Lake Erie.

The Jetport scheme would make someone of the Jesse James mentality drool. It has all the profit potentials that evidence the monumental greed and selfishness typical of corporate leadership of any city.

The 200-plus page proposal, called a ‘prefeasibility technical report,’ outlines one of the largest ripoffs this community will ever be left paying for.

I wonder how Roldo might compare this ripoff to those that would follow in the decades to come including Gateway, Tower City, The Galleria, The Flats, The Rock Hall (with its attending rapid service). Roldo continues:

As usual, the scheme was paid for by tax-free foundation funds, $50,000 from Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund, routed through the Cleveland Development Fund, which has done more to divert public funds into private hands than any one agency I know. CDF has been a major business, tax-free front used to fund studies that result in private profit via the use of massive public tax funds.

By spending no more than pennies of its own, the Cleveland corporate community wants a billion dollar creation, supplemented by about another billion dollars in transportation feeder facilities, that will become the foundation for private profits of billions for rich corporations.

I have been known to say that you don’t get rich by making money, you get rich by not spending money. What I normally mean is that buying bigger houses and cars tends to make you poorer, but what Roldo is writing about here is my advice on steroids: getting richer by spending other people’s money. Roldo continues:

But by all means placing the true cost where it belongs should be avoided at all costs as the Growth Association suggests:

The Jetport must be an economically sound product and NOT SUBJECT THE AIRLINE CARRIERS TO UNFEASIBLE INVESTMENTS AND COSTS. [Roldo’s emphasis.]

In other words, you build a billion dollar facility for their business but make sure they have to finance it. How about the taxpayer and his or her unfeasible investments and costs?

The Growth Association plan explains that revenue bonds will be used to finance local commitments where possible. But this too is a tax. For example, toll charges or special taxes to pay off revenue bonds typically continue years after the reason for them has been paid. [Emphasis mine, JH] The New York Port Authority is a good example of the misuse of such powers.

I doubt that even Roldo foresaw how this theme would consume his reporting over the next four decades. Much deeper in his piece I was struck by the following paragraph. Roldo continues:

The intention that the construction of a Jetport would be good for the ecology of the region [Emphasis mine, JH] received wide coverage in the news media.

The rationale was as perverse and twisted as you might imagine. You have to read the whole sordid explanation to appreciate how pathological these people were.

Speaking of pathological, finally in the issue, Roldo returns to the Cleveland Police Department in Leisman Case Shows Perk, As Stokes, To Allow Police To Rampage With News Media Covering Up. He writes:

An officer couldn’t have a worse record of misbehavior than [Cleveland Police Lieutenant Harry] Leisman and still remain on the police force.

Mayor Ralph Perk has continued the practice of coddling a man who seems to have made a habit of shooting people. Wherever he goes, people turn up dead.

Perk, who pleaded that he wants a clean administration and doesn’t want a ‘bad’ cop on the force, moved to cooperate with Leisman by not suspending him but granting a leave of absence after Leisman’s latest shoot ’em up.

This one, Christmas eve, left a trail of blood on the West Side and two dead, one a 10-year old boy who was watching TV and the other a 25-year old woman. A bar room dispute set off the gun battle. Leisman used a stolen M-14 in his wild one-man charge of the bar.

What was a cop doing with an M-14? Good question. Roldo continues:

If the news media had any concern for the community, or any desire to show their concern for justice they wouldn’t be handling the whole Leisman story as they have.

What the media are doing is boxing themselves in purposefully by dredging up conflicting stories so that they will not have to take a stand.

They have reported Leisman with a shotgun, with a rifle, with nothing, with an M-14 handed to him by a mysterious ‘someone.’

All this is the product of a form of journalism that allows the journalist to escape any responsibility and thus allows the cop to escape responsibility too.

The reporter works hand in hand with the cops who traditionally shield one of their own.

Police reporters at the [Cleveland] Press and Plain Dealer know Harry Leisman much better than I do. They know his reputation. They can quote first hand to show exactly what he is. But they won’t. Frankly, they can take the blame, as much as Leisman, for the death of the 10-year old.

And oh. Did you think I was over the top using the word pathological above? I wasn’t. Roldo continues:

Probably most damaging are the results of a psychological test which concludes that Leisman is psychologically unfit to be a policeman.

Roldo concludes by doxing the mayor.

Perk’s home number is 883-3866 or at work 694-2000. He ought to hear from people who feel that cops who kill 10-year olds through negligence don’t make good employees.

Sadly, I think any reasonable person might draw a line directly from Harry Leisman to Timothy Loehmann.

See here for a bibliography of books and other materials mentioned in this series.

Previously while Readin’ Roldo…

President Joseph Robinette Biden sits in the oval office and all is wrong in the world. Don’t get me wrong. I am pleased that Donald John Trump is away—for now—from Washington, but we have no reason to celebrate the election of Biden and Kamala Devi Harris to our two highest offices. If we lose ourselves in celebration and look away we will have nothing left.

Glenn Greenwald, writing in As the Insurrection Narrative Crumbles, Democrats Cling to it More Desperately Than Ever, shreds the myth, and ledes:

Twice in the last six weeks, warnings were issued about imminent, grave threats to public safety posed by the same type of right-wing extremists who rioted at the Capitol on January 6. And both times, these warnings ushered in severe security measures only to prove utterly baseless.

First we had the hysteria over the violence we were told was likely to occur at numerous state capitols on Inauguration Day. “Law enforcement and state officials are on high alert for potentially violent protests in the lead-up to Inauguration Day, with some state capitols boarded up and others temporarily closed ahead of Wednesday’s ceremony,” announced CNN. In an even scarier formulation, NPR intoned that “the FBI is warning of protests and potential violence in all 50 state capitals ahead of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration.”

The resulting clampdowns were as extreme as the dire warnings. Washington, D.C. was militarized more than at any point since the 9/11 attack. The military was highly visible on the streets. And, described The Washington Post, “state capitols nationwide locked down, with windows boarded up, National Guard troops deployed and states of emergency preemptively declared as authorities braced for potential violence Sunday mimicking the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of pro-Trump rioters.” All of this, said the paper, “reflected the anxious state of the country ahead of planned demonstrations.”

But none of that happened—not even close.

The hysteria, however, worked. Greenwald continues:

The argument… is that the threat was being deliberately inflated and exaggerated, and fears stoked and exploited, both for political gain and to justify the placement of more and more powers in the hands of the state in the name of stopping these threats. That is the core formula of authoritarianism—to place the population in a state of such acute fear that it acquiesces to any assertion of power which security state agencies and politicians demand and which they insist are necessary to keep everyone safe.

Safe and quacking in their boots, because the crazies are coming for their pearls.

Bonus No. 1:

This morning while reading the ever excellent North Royalton Post, I came across a letter-to-the-editor from Scott Jeppesen of Medina, Ohio with the headline: Another brilliant decision made by the leftist. While I read the letters daily, I rarely respond. In this particular case, however, I thought I might a thought of value to Mr. Jeppesen. I wrote:

This is in response to a letter-to-the-editor under the headline: Another brilliant decision made by the leftist in this morning’s Post.

In response to Mr. Jeppesen’s letter yesterday, I would note that education, like so much in life, is a numbers game. The population of China in 2019 is estimated to have been about 1.4 billion. In the same year the United States population was only around 0.39 billion: a ratio of 1.4 to 0.39 or approximately 3.6 Chinese for every American.

Those numbers are generalized. Distributions for age, sex, &c. will show different ratios, but the general number works for this illustration. Imagine for a moment an American Dream Team in any sport you might wish to assemble and then imagine that team facing a Chinese Dream Team with 3.6 more players—five American basketballers facing 18 Chinese basketballers, for instance. Just where are you going to bet your mortgage?

We are in the same place educationally. For every top student we graduate from an elite university, the Chinese are graduating at least 3.6 top students.

In addition, the Chinese are not so ignorant as to base their educational system on local property taxes or a family’s ability to pay. For them education is a national priority with national goals and national funding.

Anything else is just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

I’ve included a link in the letter to see if Mr. Jeppesen wants to continue the conversation

Bonus No. 1: Pest Control Takes On Trump 2024.

When Cuyahoga County dipped into its general fund on Jan. 15 to pay a $6.1 million bond debt on a 25-year old debt related to the Cavs’ basketball arena the payments crossed the $165-million mark in total. It has two more annual payment to make.

Over the years I have encouraged reporters to tell this story to little avail.

Once the Plain Dealer gave it a good headline. But that was years ago.

One guesses they don’t want to remind the public of the ongoing robbery.

This $165 million in public money hardly gets noticed by a slew of journalist in this town. It’s not on their scoreboard.

It is on mine.

And I’m accused of spending too much time, too much typing telling that story.

I plead guilty.

You won’t have to read this much longer. None of us lives forever.

But as long as I do, I’m going to remind all.

And I’ve found another way these multi-millionaire and billionaires who own sports franchise profit. They’re major league scofflaws.

That $165 million should have been paid by Dan Gilbert, a healthy billionaire owner of the Cavs, who uses the Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse to advertise his business. The team owners absconded with the naming rights that originally went to the Gateway Economic Development Corp. Gilbert is listed as a $49.6 billion man.

What’s interesting is if he’s saving that $165 million, it’s money that isn’t taxable. So he’s relieved also of a tax burden, as he is with all the benefits he gets of an arena built essentially for him and his players.

Millionaires and billionaires on public welfare. Where is Republican outrage? Where is the news media outrage at this corruption?

The GREED here is massive. It cannot be allowed to be extended and continued.

We are entering an election year. Can we expect more from the Plain Dealer and television than repetition of what candidates send out about themselves?

Do you already get the sense that the Cleveland power establishment has anointed Justin Bibb to be the next Cleveland mayor?

I’m not impressed with the young, vibrant Mr. Bibb.

But his fund-raising is impressive. Especially for an unknown. He’s raised some $170,000 early on.

He makes certain claims in his preliminary promotion of himself as a neighborhood kind of guy. In a city of neighborhoods.

But he lives downtown, not in a real neighborhood.

We need some straight talk. Both from candidates. And from the news media.

Cleveland, everyone knows, has severe problem. Yes, it has valuable assets.

It’s past wealth has left us with incredible legacies—from the theaters at Playhouse Square to the Cleveland Art Museum and many others.

But they cannot sustain families in poverty.

I tried to show the power interests here have been so successful as to heighten inequality.

It gets revealed also if you Google Cleveland and come up with some of the following bad news of our city:

Cleveland comes in at No. 5 on 24/7 Wall St.’s 2018 list of the “Worst Cities to Live In.” The list is based on “quality of life” factors such as home value, air quality, infrastructure, poverty rate, education, crime and other things. Cleveland ranks behind only Memphis, St. Louis, Flint, Mich.

Cleveland had the highest poverty rate among large U.S. cities in 2019, overtaking Detroit, according to data released by the U.S. Census bureau last week. More than 6,500 of those adults in poverty in Cleveland worked full-time for the full year.

Cleveland is the 5th-fastest shrinking large city in the US, according to new study. The city’s population is now down to just over 380,000. —August 22, 2020

[Cleveland is] one of the poorest cities in the country. Cleveland’s 35 [percent] poverty rate is more than double the U.S. poverty rate and higher than that of all but one other city in the state… The city is also dangerous. There were 1,633 violent crimes in the city for every 100,000 residents in 2016. —June 19, 2018

It has to be taken seriously now. It cannot wait.

It will erupt again.

Bonus No. 1: Don’t we all…

Bonus No. 2: Got Guillotines?

Bonus No. 3: Yeah, we passed Stage 4 months ago and don’t even think about Stage 5.

Bonus No. 1: The Biden Administration Takes on the Big Issues.

Bonus No. 2: The Imperfectionist—No such thing as a fresh start.

Bonus No. 3: Don’t Hate Rush Limbaugh. Copy Him.

Bonus No. 4: Biden Offers Moderate Solutions to Radical Problems.

Bonus No. 5: It’s Not That Biden Is Too Slow. It’s That He’s Going Too Small.

Since before I arrived in Cleveland in November 1984, a common theme of Roldo Bartimole’s Point Of Viəw has been the robbery of Cleveland tax dollars by billionaire owners of Cleveland’s sports franchises: the Indians, Browns and Cavaliers. While taxes have risen in the city and Cuyahoga County, the team owners have avoided all, or nearly all, of the burden.

I’ve known sports’ fans, enamored with their teams who wished Roldo would just stop repeating the same old story that the Indians, or the Browns, or the Cavaliers were getting a pass on taxes. They didn’t care because their team distracted them from the money flowing out of their pockets, out of Cleveland, our of Cuyahoga County and out of Ohio to benefit people who needed their own teams of accountants to keep track of their wealth.

Well, Roldo kept at the story year and after year and he’s still pounding away and river of cash is going elsewhere. In an opinion piece for Crain’s Cleveland Business—Do we need a council committee on inequality?—Roldo ledes:

On Jan. 15, Cuyahoga County paid $6,145,133 on bonds owed for the Rocket Mortgage Field House, according to an e-mail response from a county official.

The bonds relate to overruns on the arena built in 1990s, almost three decades ago. There are two annual payments remaining.

The county had to pay the full amount, In past years, the city’s admissions tax paid the larger portion. Due to the pandemic, admission taxes revenue was unavailable.

So, how much money is Roldo talking about here? Roldo writes:

Some years ago, I asked the county to provide information on the property values and the lost income of the three sports facilities for the Browns, Indians and Cavaliers.

The response revealed the cost in lost tax revenue:

The Browns stadium, now First Energy Stadium, should have paid for a two-year period, $16,055,034 on the stadium alone. The city itself actually pays taxes on the land.

The arena, now Rocket Mortgage Field House, should have paid $7,582,482 for the same two-year period.

And Progressive Field, where the Indians play, should have paid $9,700,620 for that same two-year period.

That’s a total of $33,338,136.

Did you get a personal thank you from billionaires James Arthur Haslam III, Paul Joseph Dolan or Daniel Gilbert?

Me neither.