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.

I began to follow Baratunde Rafiq Thurston after listening to one of his How To Citizen podcasts last August. (I was fascinated to discover this morning that I actually first heard of Baratunde way back in 2012! and forgot about him.) I think that the very populist Democracy Means People Power, Literally was my first.

This morning he has a few words for the flighty senator from Texas. In A BRIEF STATEMENT Baratunde writes:

Texas Senator Ted Cruz was born in Canada. This week he fled to Mexico. But he’s spent most of the past four years living inside his own ass, making a mockery of the U.S. principle of divided government, rule of law, and basic human decency. It’s fitting that a cowardly human who defended and praised the bully who slandered and insulted both his wife and his father would scramble over the border wall to escape the country he only pretends to serve.

He took a break from his busy summer schedule pre-planning to undermine our democratic elections to tweet insults at the people of California during their suffering. He also voted against Hurricane Sandy relief for the people of New York and New Jersey during their suffering. But he is not alone. Let us save some disdain for those without the name Ted Cruz.

Mitch McConnell — oh he of the partial, self-serving variety of pseudo patriotism who says Donald Trump is responsible for insurrection but not enough to be held accountable for it — just last year stood against COVID relief by referring to the once-in-a-century-pandemic rescue package as a “Blue State Bailout.” It’s blue states that have been bailing out Kentucky for his entire time in the Senate, but don’t let facts get in the way of a good opportunity to weaken our democracy.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, I have no patience for these so-called leaders or much of this Republican Party. They have stood against the people in the pandemic, during fires, and in the ice. Too many of them sided with violent insurrectionists and failed to hold their chief inciter accountable. As far as I’m concerned, they can all go to Mexico, if that nation will even have them, and return when they’ve decided to actually support the United States of America.

But, but but… ‘Merica!

Bonus No. 1: From what I have heard, it’s known as “to read!”

Bonus No. 2: How Rush Limbaugh Paved The Way For Trump.

Bonus No. 3: Mainstream media fawns over a toxic bigot who poisoned our politics.

Bonus No. 4: My favorite Cruz-Family Moment.

Bonus No. 5: What Donald John Trump is endlessly looping in Mar-a-Lago.

Bonus No. 6: And finally, one for Roldo—The Heart of Cleveland.

The most vital lesson I have learned from reading the first four years of Roldo Bartimole’s Point Of Viəw—I’m still reading—is that time and time again, across more than 60 years, Roldo has told us what would happen if we allowed elites to run roughshod over Cleveland and he’s invariably been right. We keep believing that elected officials will make a difference.

The truth is that they’re in on the scam. We are the only force for change. Seven years ago, back on 29 March 2014, Roldo Bartimole wrote:

Can we see into the future?

Sure we can.

When County Executive Ed FitzGerald indebted Cuyahoga County residents to build a $270 million, 600-room hotel, a reasonable person would tell you that he put taxpayers in a perilous position.

I said it then. I believe it now.

The hotel, to be constructed where the Cuyahoga County administration building once stood indebts taxpayers with financing a hotel. It also required the County to move its offices.

The heavy financing comes at a time when the County pols are asking voters to authorize another $290 million for sports stadiums, for expensive riverfront and lakefront subsidies and a costly Public Square revamping.

Do they believe everyone’s pockets are overflowing with excess money?

Do they understand that much of Cleveland suffers from a poverty of income and spirit?

Yesterday, in Cuyahoga County, in “Worst Case Scenario,” Bails Out Downtown Hilton Once Again with $15 Million, Sam Allard wrote:

In accordance with the “worst case scenario” projections of budget analysts, Cuyahoga County will bail out the Hilton downtown Cleveland hotel with an infusion of nearly $15 million.

This payment—which has been approved by county council, and which officials have hastened to underscore is contractually obligated—will cover mostly debt service and taxes that the hotel chain claims it cannot afford due to low occupancy rates.

After a $7.9 million bailout last year, the total amount contributed by county taxpayers to the hotel is nearly $22 million, more than double the county’s total contributions toward Covid rental relief and small business grants.

What a disgrace.

It does not matter who is mayor or county executive. It only matters that the elites of Cleveland—from Marcus Alonzo Hanna forward—hold power and wealth in their greedy little hands and continue to fuck the people of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County for their own amusement and continued riches.

Who don’t mean shit. What matters.

Bonus No. 1: The Press is godless. We don’t have any bibles. Oh, that’s right…

Bonus No. 2: The solution dear Pig, is, always is, leave nowhere and be now here.

Bonus No.3: It’s all fun and games until 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14.

The pace of the 2021 Mayor election has started to quicken early.

But the spotlight thus far is on the wrong subject.

It shouldn’t be on the potential candidates, many as there are.

This will be—or should be—a change election.

It should not necessarily be WHO but WHAT.

We have had in Cleveland nearly two decades of political drift.

It’s a city that can’t afford any more.

Two decades of paying little attention to the many or their dire needs.

But, more important, too much attention to the needs of the high income population and its desires.

It’s not help the needy. But support our civic takers.

What do I mean?

If you read or listen to the news carefully you will get the message that Cleveland’s vitality is its downtown.

And if you ask where public funds flow, it would be the same answer: downtown.

It is the massive financing of the three major league sports teams via taxes that, unfortunately, are taken regressively from the many. But they go to the few: the multi-millionaire and billionaire owners and the multi-millionaire players.

Hardly fair. The need for economic justice is dire. But missing.

Similarly true Is the subsidy flow to downtown developers, Playhouse Square, hotel construction, supported to some extent by property tax forgiving and numerous special fund—city, county and state and federal.

This is all SOLD to the public by a fawning news media. They consider all these “advances” as proper and positive. And do so without weighing the cost and who pays it.

There is little or no questioning of priorities.

So we need a community debate on such matters.

We are not likely to get it from any single candidate.

It needs to be forced onto the Public Agenda.

How does this happen?

Only by the interests of citizens not running for mayor or backing a specific candidate. They must participate.

It’s a very tough road.

Especially since the record is that the public (voters) are not interested or have been turn off by their experience.

What they do or want doesn’t seem to matter.

How do you turn this around?

You have to offer hope. You do that by establishing a test.

Much of what has been done—financing sports, tax abatements, opening Chagrin Highlands to development—can’t be undone at this point.

There’s one new gimmick that needs to go.

Every candidate should be asked whether he or she supports the 30-year, atop a 30-year TIF. It’s a form of tax abatement.

[Tax Increment Financing is far from a new subject for Roldo. JH]

City Council recently bestowed the extension for development on the East Bank of the Cuyahoga. The development has been ongoing for some time by the Wolstein Group.

It’s a familiar story.

A 30-year TIF atop a 30-year TIF suggests that all the Council members who voted the subsidy won’t be here when it concludes. Sixty years of tax break in all. Only two Council members gave it a thumbs down —Jenny Spencer, relatively new, and Brian Kazy.

The Flats project already has other incentives and comes when interest rates are historically low.

Further, do we need more restaurants? Financed with public funds?

The other factor that doesn’t seem ever to be examined: How will subsidized business here effect other ongoing businesses already impacted by the general economy and especially by the pandemic.

It would be advisable that mayoral candidates be asked to pledge not to use the 30-year TIF extension, voted by the Republican state legislature.

Why are Democrats in economically damaged cities playing the card handed to them by Republican Corporate (and Corrupt) state legislators?

A reader forwarded the above image–mouse over for the enlargement—to me and suggested that I focus on the return address:

Joseph G.Tegreene
1228 Euclid Avenue #816
Cleveland Ohio 44115

Tegreene, the treasurer of the Reëlect Mayor Kucinich Committee, is a long-time friend and supporter of Dennis John Kucinich. He served as Financial Director during Kucinich’s single term as the 53rd mayor of Cleveland.

Roldo Bartimole mentioned Tegreene in his Point Of Viəw no less than 21 times—including three Scrooge Awards¹—beginning with: Volume 10, Number 15; Volume 10, Number 20; Volume 11, Number 4; Volume 11, Number 8; Volume 11, Number 10; Volume 11, Number 11; Volume 11, Number 19; Volume 11, Number 23; Volume 12, Number 19; Volume 14, Number 13; Volume 14, Number 14; Volume 14, Number 16; Volume 15, Number 11; Volume 16, Number 1; Volume 16, Number 11; Volume 16, Number 22; Volume 17, Number 8; Volume 17, Number 14; Volume 17, Number 20; Volume 19, Number 2; and, finally? Volume 28, Number 4.

Roldo mentioned Kucinich, of course, many more times—192 by my count—in POV beginning in Volume 2, Number 3 published on 22 June 1970.

Kucinich’s public career began with his election to Cleveland City Council from the 12th Ward in 1970. He last won an election—to the U.S. House of Representatives—in 2010. He ran twice, and lost, for the Democratic Party nomination to president in 2004 and 2008 while serving in Congress. He lost his reëlection bid to the House in 2012 and a run for Governor of Ohio in 2018.

I expect that his opponents will make more of what Kucinich did between his terms in public office than his elected accomplishments. I don’t have great expectations for his chances to be finally reëlected mayor of Cleveland in 2021.

[Update at 1700 on 17 February: Roldo has weighed in on the mayoral race.]

1. Tegreene recieved three Scrooge Awards: A pawnbroker. (1978); A telescope to watch city hall from his office in the Board of Education building. (1982) and Ambition stripes he can wear on his sleeves (1983)

Early in the most recent Pandemic, a friend commented that the virus came out of nowhere. When I told her that scientists have been warning us about the coming pandemics for decades, she asked why did you ever hear anything about it. I told her that she didn’t hear about it because it was not in the interest of the One Percent to do so.

We are literally setting up greed to kill us all. Humanity is acting like a virus that threatens all life on our planet—Global Warming is the biggest threat—and Nature, acting in self defense, is doing everything possible to stop us. This is the case that John Oliver makes in his first show for 2021. He could have talked about the current pandemic, but he chose to talk about the next one.

I’m a frequent caller to WCPN’s Sound of Ideas, and in a recent show on our pandemic, I asked the panel what were we doing about the next pandemic? They jumped on the question, recognizing that they had a narrow window to convince the population that the question was not if there would be another pandemic, but rather how much time did we have before we took another, quite possibly far more deadlier—as is the pattern—hit from Mother Nature.

There is a military proverb that suggests generals are always preparing to fight the previous war—think The Court Martial of Billy Mitchell—and scientists are warning us that the people who profited from this pandemic are not all that interested in preventing, or at least reducing the effect of, the monster on the horizon.

While the One Percent may escape on Elon Musk’s rockets, the rest of us face a different outcome is not quite so cushy.

We are so fucked.

Bonus No. 1: For now: Full Last Week Tonight With John Oliver 2/14/21

Businesses have long practiced what has been known as astroturfing—setting up fake organizations to provide cover for practices the public, or government, might not approve of—Roldo Bartimole, no stranger to the practice, devotes his top story in the final month of 1971 to a particularly egregious case of the practice here in Cleveland.

In his 6 December 1971 issue of Point Of Viəw (volume 4, number 11), Roldo, writing in Citizen League Another Dead Institution; Has As Much Bite As Toothless Chihuahua, ledes:

Of all the institutions claiming to be working for the good of the total community one of the most pretentious is the Citizen’s League. It claims “75 years of doing good.” And one ask, “For whom?”

The Citizens League is portrayed by the media as a non-partisan organization interested in making the government more responsible to citizens. The newspapers in particular give the League’s endorsements [of candidates for political office, JH] with more than adequate space and headlines. The two newspapers actually vie as to which will get first release on the endorsements.

Actually, the Citizens League is rather a useless organization as far as most citizens are concerned. It’s time the truth was told about it and time the League was dumped on the heap of tired institutions no longer able to respond to modern needs. And it’s more difficult to fool people into thinking it even desires to.

Not that the League has ever been responsive to the needs of ordinary people.

I particularly like the “interested in making the government more responsible to citizens” line. The citizens represented by the League are members of Roldo’s “elites” or what I have come to refer to—with a nod to Occupy Wall Street and Bernie Sanders, of course—as the 1 Percent. The 99 percent can shut up and do what they are told as far as the League would be concerned.

The League’s $54,000-budge is modest—covering the salaries of three employees and operational costs—but, Roldo, following the money, continues:

There’s no money for the vast research the League claims. However, it has a partner in all this, the Government Research Institute… Most of its money comes from Establishment sources, not the least of which are the foundations. For example, The Cleveland Development Foundation last year gave GRI $15,000 to ensure “adequate local government services and equal tax policies in support of the physical and economic development of the Greater Cleveland area.” The Cleveland Electric Illuminating Co. gave GRI $2,500 last year.

There seems to be little reason to question where GRI’s allegiance is. It’s a business front group, just as the League is.
…
A city commissioner who has had dealings with GRI says of it:

The conservative business sponsors can depend upon it to produce just what they want to hear… It’s a way to channel research dollars that come up with the answers the donor wants.

…
The Citizens League, rather than a government watchdog concerned about citizens, is more concerned with ensuring lower taxes for industry. The League also is biased toward Republicans and pet politicians.

Have you ever heard of the Citizens League pressuring city government to get tough on polluters, on consumer fraud or to increase health services to meet the needs of the poor?

More on this below under the headline: If You’ve Got The Stomach, Here’s Chance To Earn $60,000 A Year, Meet ‘Best People.’ Roldo continues:

The Cleveland Press, showing how ludicrous the pretense that the Citizens League is neutral, ran a front page article on [Seth] Taft’s endorsement [for county commissioner by the League] with a large headline. The article didn’t note that Taft had been president of the Citizens League and had always been closely allied to it. Indeed, he still serves as a board member of GRI and is rather typical of its membership.

The League shies from making endorsements for mayor of Cleveland and its major endorsements are of Cleveland councilmen and judges [Where the best puppets can be bought at bargain prices. JH] It’s impact on the former is nil because of its suburban orientation and it has little consistency for suburban-wide contests.

The League, though, is very proud of its endorsements and the process by which a candidate is selected for the honor of getting the League’s blessing.

One of the questions I’d like to ask Roldo here would be to what degree did the League’s endorsements match those made by the Plain Dealer and the Press? Roldo, quoting the League, continues:

The purpose of the Candidates Committee of the Citizens League is to make a fair and objective appraisal [Emphasis mine, JH] of candidates for public office.

But the League isn’t even honest about its selection of candidates.

A letter from one of its Candidate Committee members to the League in 1969 suggests that the League doesn’t live up to the image it and media try to relay to the community.

I was deeply troubled by the Board’s action in giving Mr. Sweeney a ‘well-qualified’ rating. In the Committee’s evaluation of the candidates, we discussed the possibility of giving the ‘should be defeated’ (Very few candidates are given this rating and it would have merited much media notice, [RB]) rating to Mr. Sweeney and Mr. Nagy. [League director]Mr. [Estal] Sparlin explained the circumstances under which this rating was normally given, so neither man received this rating. (Gerald Sweeney and William Nagy were both elected to the board??? and have served poorly. [RB])

It’s interesting that the sacred Committee would consider giving two candidates the worst possible rating yet the final decision of the board of the Citizens League gives one of them the highest rating. It certainly suggests that more than the Committee process is at work.

…
One has to be a bit naive to take the League’s endorsements seriously , notwithstanding the newspaper’s attempt to foist them on the public.

The League isn’t above advising a candidate as to how he or she might get its endorsement either. Dennis Kucinich says he was told when he first ran in 1967 that he could expect the League’s endorsement if he’d be less brash and keep a low profile before the announcements. He did and the League did.

Americans have received a vital lesson in recent years of the potential damage that arises when managed messaging is allowed to supplant honest reporting, particularly when the false narratives are fed to lazy journalists whose editors tell them to rewrite press releases from friendly sources. Roldo continues:

GRI’s “research” work is also questionable.

As an example, the Commission was first asked to formulate a crash program for raising about $500,000 in revenue [for the City of Cleveland] to meet a short-term financial crisis. The chairman of the special committee to find a revenue source for the $500,000 was former Union Commerce president Harry Burmester and the committee included such ‘neutrals’ as Richard Baker, managing partner of Ernst & Ernst, and Tom Patton, then chairman of Republic Steel.

The ‘solution’ the Committee came up with, with the aid of GRI, was to reduce the charges by the municipal light plant for street lighting and other services to the city agencies, thus reducing payments from the general fund. To make up for the loss, the municipal light plant would increase charges to its other customers.

Not only wouldn’t this method cost the corporations anything but it would make Cleveland Electric Illuminating Co. look good by raising city electricity rates. CEI, of course, is a contributor to GRI via its foundation. But, that’s the nature of GRI. It’s paid and bought by corporate sources and does the bidding of corporate interests.

This is such a perfect example of the flat out evil of the 1 Percent. Cleveland needs $500,000 [$3,229,407.41 in 2020. JH] Rather than increase taxes by that amount, the League’s research arm, proposes shifting the money from the city to the city’s residents—or at least those residents who are customers of the publicly owned Cleveland Municipal Light And Power—and give the privately owned CEI a feather for having lower electrical prices and higher profits for having dodge a tax increase. Caligula would have loved it.

Roldo wraps up his examination of the League and GRI with an example of another city on a lake. He writes:

In Chicago, some business people have come up with a more attractive idea, in its words, “a unique combination of watchdogs, research center, law firm and ombudsman.” It’s called Businessmen for the Public Interest [A riff on Nader?] and actually says something about being interested in “relief of the poor and distressed; lessening neighborhood tensions; defense of human and civil rights; and improvement of the environment.

BPI openly opposed Chicago’s jetport in the lake scheme; [A scheme Cleveland elites tried and failed to make happen, see below. JH] took on Commonwealth Edison for air pollution with newspaper ads calling the electricity company’s anti-pollution claims “Hogwash.” It joined other groups in petitioning for a special prosecutor to investigate the police murders of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark. BPI investigators uncovered a deal by the chairman of the Chicago Housing Authority to sell land to a developer who happened to be his partner.

This information comes from BPI propaganda and may be jazzed up but the issues mentioned are not one that would ever concern the Citizens League despite its glowing words about “doing good.”

Finally in this issue, Roldo, writing in Distortion By Race, takes another look at how crime is reported. He ledes:

The [1970] figures from the Cleveland Police Department on arrests of persons under 18 years of age suggest a pattern of discrimination.

Totals show, for breaking and entering, 305 ‘white’ arrests and 481 ‘Negro’ arrests and for theft, 257 ‘white’ arrests and 817 ‘Negro’ arrests.

However, on lesser charges the balance between black and white are the opposite. Vandalism arrests, for example, are 141 whites and 88 blacks.

What is possible, of course, is that what may be ‘breaking and entering’ for a black may merely be ‘vandalism’ for a white. The individual police office makes the decision on what the charge is to be.

Similarly, aggravated assault shows 70 black arrests and 20 white. But disorderly conduct shows 88 white and 58 black arrests while curfew and loitering shows 223 white and only 163 back arrests.

If one could add ‘income’ to the breakdown of race it would probably show that the lower the income of the white arrested the more serious the crime, not as committed, but as charged.

Like the brigands revealed to be all noblemen who have gone wrong in The Pirates of Penzance, all those white boys were just engaging in youthful hijinks, and would soon settle down to being proper citizens if only given a break.

In his 20 December 1971 issue of Point Of Viəw (volume 4, number 12), Roldo ends the year, as is his holiday tradition, with Point Of Viəw‘s SCROOGE AWARDS. Roldo writes:

It’s time for the third annual Scrooge Awards freely given by the POINT OF VIEW and without any desire for reciprocation. The gifts go to deserving individuals and institutions deserving of the honors rendered them in this season of manufactured ‘Good Will.’

Roldo begins with a trio of mutual awards.

To Don Robertson: Alan Douglas.
To Alan Douglas: Don Robertson.
To Dorothy Fuldheim: Don Roberson and Alan Douglas.

To Tom Vail: The Joe Eszterhas Loyalty Doll, it bites the hand that feeds it.

To Ted Princiotto: The Tom Vail Doll: it kicks the one that winds it up.

A full sleigh of gifts to newly elected Cleveland Mayor Ralph Perk:

10 Federal programs, 9 black churches, 8 ethnic leaders, 7 Carl Stokes to run against, 6 crucifixes, 5 Lawrence Welk records, 4 Lawrence Hall suits (irregulars), 3 different city budges, 2 holy bibles and a Bob Weisman in a pear tree.

To Carl Stokes: Best Fiction of the Year Award for “The Stokes Years.”

To Richard Harmody, Dennis Kucinich and John Cimperman: Three-way tie for a gallon of Archie Bunker mouthwash.

To the Salvation Army: Soup for its kettles. And,

To Point Of Viəw: A fact, any fact, and 32 subscriptions to put it over the 100 mark.

Finally, as promised above, Roldo takes a swipe at Jones, Day, Cockley and Reavis in: If You’ve Got The Stomach, Here’s Chance To Earn $60,000 A Year, Meet ‘Best People,’ Roldo ledes:

You might not think that Cleveland’s biggest law firm thinks of itself as a sort of family. But it does.

When Jones, Day, Cockley and Reavis has an interest in a law student as a prospective addition to its family, not only do JDCR lawyers join the effort to make him or her (very unlikely) feel at home but JDCR wives to too. JDCR wives are expected to be perfect hostesses and take the prospect’s wife on a tour of the proper Cleveland spots, typically the posher eastern suburbs, with lunch at the Red Fox Inn in Gates Mills.

The process is not all sweetness and bliss, however. The wives, and their husbands of course, have a duty to ensure the prospects are the right sort of people and understand that the firm’s partners have standards. Roldo continues:

But JDCR, with all its hospitality, has some hang-ups. The prospect is told, despite the outline of the glories of JDCR lawyers solving social ills, that any anti-pollution efforts are not tolerated. In no uncertain terms,” one prospect says. JDCR is the pollution firm in Cleveland, having sought to wreck the city’s anti-pollution law as representative of industrial polluters.

Some JDCR lawyers have learned the hard way. Grant Thompson took an interest in community affairs and was elected vice chairman of the local Sierra Club. Thompson no longer works for JDCR. Eased out. He’s now with the Environmental Defense Fund in Washington. Don Large had the same problem at JDCR. His participation in the Sierra Club was not appreciated. He’s now teaching environmental law at the University of Wisconsin.

Prospects for the JDCR ‘family’ are told that they must avoid ‘controversial’ issues. And when a firm represents Republic Steel in Cleveland, joining the Sierra Club is controversial.

Finally, this paragraph caught my attention in Roldo’s final story for the year. After quoting extensively from JDCR’s own literature, he writes:

Some factors, of course, aren’t mentioned in JDCR’s resume. That’s why we referred to its prospects as males. We could generalize and say that JDCR is a white, male, Protestant outfit. JDCR has two women [Out of 57 partners and 45 associates in 1971. JH], one a partner who has been with the firm for some 15 years, the second joined last summer. “Our black lawyer” says a spokesman, “Has been with us about a year and a half.”

Sadly, such tokenism is still very much with us.

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

Previously while Readin’ Roldo…

Bonus No. 1:‘He’s a symbol of resistance’: the true story of ‘Black Messiah’ Fred Hampton.