RNC: Trubek nails it.

 

I never saw it all put together so clearly and directly. Anne Trubek at BELTmag wrote:

The city is still ten million short of what they need, and even committed sponsors may pull out. The federal money going into the convention is hard to track, and the Cleveland Police Department seems to be behind on its orders for body armor and extra security while it is now requesting funding to — get this — build a wall. (The city council long ago waived its right to oversee how the mayor spends the $50 million in federal money it will receive to cover security.)

 

Rule of thumb

 

When encountering any article or publication or statement about Cleveland’s “renaissance” or “recovery” or “comeback,” you must mentally eliminate any and all claims based on entertainment venues or any kind of real estate development. Those are trailing indicators; they don’t build anything.

Examples

What could POSSIBLY go wrong?

 

I don’t know if you heard it here first, but if you heard it here first remember that you heard it here first:

Trump’s gonna win.

I don’t have a lot of logic to back it up. Yet. But something about this seems weirdly inevitable. I think the main thing has to do with my hypothesis about “white moderates,” who are basically conservatives with enough liberal friends that they only vote for “nice” Republicans to avoid social opprobrium.

Short version: Trump’s going to nominate someone really cool and compelling for Vice President, and he’ll throw enough (extra) economic populism into his stump speech to sway people who feel a lot of economic uncertainty, and he’ll cut way back on the theatrics to create a media narrative that makes his detractors look ridiculous. (Remember, media people are not very bright and they have very short memories.)

If nominated, Hillary will lose by continually trying to split the difference and seem reasonable.

If nominated, Bernie will lose by being so earnest and geeky that Trump’s bullying will push everyone’s lizard-brain buttons and the public will join in.

I’m serious about this.

 

Really bad reason for not supporting Bernie Sanders

 

I don’t know why people keep saying this.

Another on my list of “things people fervently believe and argue on Facebook that do not make any sense at all.”

Stated:

I’d love to support Bernie but he’s so far left he won’t get anything done with Congress.

Why that makes no sense:

Continue reading Really bad reason for not supporting Bernie Sanders

Do I look like the assignment editor?

 

At 6:39 this morning: “Longtime Councilman @JoeCimperman leaving…”

My immediate response: “Why no mention of the ethics investigation? That would seem to be relevant.”

At 3:14 p.m. today: “Cleveland Councilman Joe Cimperman’s departure not part of a deal to close ethics inquiry.”

Seriously? This doesn’t become an issue until I bring it up?

Nobody will save you, Cleveland.

 

LeBron to save Cleveland? Spare me. This is exactly what’s wrong with Cleveland.

We keep expecting someone with money and fame to “save” the city. It’s always LeBron or the Browns or the or the fracking people or the Rock Hall inductions or that goddamn Republican convention. Along with the stupid bridge over the railroad tracks and the $60,000,000.00 spent on rearranging Public Square to make public transportation more difficult for everyone. And the $400,000,000.00 spent on a “Medical Mart” idea that didn’t even last as long as the building took to build.

No. It doesn’t work like that.

It’s kind of like that thing going around Facebook now, with the woman who says she encourages her granddaughters to date a guy like Mark Zuckerberg and then Zuckerberg shows up and says no, encourage children to be someone like me.

You don’t improve your personal life by marrying someone rich and competent. You don’t improve your city by throwing yourself at the next big money fad. You find the things that you are good at and work from there.

Things that Cleveland is really good at:

  • Medical research is huge here.
  • The music scene is diverse, including the third best classical orchestra in the world. And if you don’t mind a half-hour drive into the exoburbs, you can enjoy the performances in your lawn chair for $12. Come on.
  • Locally grown food is abundant even with the relatively short growing season.
  • We have access to incredible amounts of fresh water at any time of year.
  • We’re strong in Eastern European and Irish heritage.
  • Our Black communities are producing great art and thinking, and it’s coming so much from younger people who have decades more to create.
  • Land is cheap so you can have a huge garden or a ridiculously large house if you want.
  • Infrastructure in general is overbuilt for a city of 400,000, so expanding your business is easy.
  • Cleveland State University. Case. John Carroll. Notre Dame (the other one). Oberlin isn’t far away either.

Get it straight

There is no savior. There are people and resources and ideas.

Stop talking like it’s everyone else’s job to discover Cleveland and make it stop sucking. That’s our job.

But “let’s keep Company X” and “let’s attract Convention Y” aren’t ideas. They are scams. There is no shortcut.

What “moderates” don’t get

 

12314620_914913375262216_1760510955643623792_o

A friend posted this fantastic image on Facebook just now. It’s from early this afternoon in Chicago, with the following text: “Over two and a half hours later much of Michigan Ave, Water Tower & many surrounded stores are still SHUTDOWN for Laquan McDonald.” (Photo credit to @MinkuAzad from Chicago.)

Now let me get out in front of something here.

The point of this kind of tactic, I believe, is to take a problem that pretty much only black people care about and make it a problem that corporations have to care about.

It’s a way of creating leverage.

If powerful people in government think this is just about black people who live in the “ghetto” and don’t have much economic power, they will keep doing what they’re doing–which is essentially nothing.

If the same powerful people in government are getting pissed off phone calls from CEOs about losing their supposedly biggest shopping days, and if they’re getting threats from those same CEOs about moving to the suburbs, well… the idea is that they’ll see fit to dole out just enough justice to get the protesters to get out of the street.

I’m not saying it will necessarily work, but it’s logical. If you don’t have direct power over someone, you find a way to get the focused attention of someone who does have direct power over them.

(Yes, I’m implying a few other things here: that the protesters don’t have an effective grip on the electoral process, that the politicians have never really answered to them, and that the corporations that sell things on Michigan Avenue are the real bosses of Chicago.)

What this means for white people

Many people who fancy themselves Black Lives Matter “supporters” continually object to tactics that inconvenience third parties because they fail to understand the concept of leverage.

Either that, or they have a moral objection to causing any harm, no matter how slight, to these “innocent” third parties. But then those people are actually saying “Black Lives Matter, Just Not As Much As Marshall Fields Does.”

If you don’t believe me:

Check out these comments on the original Facebook post.

  • “No justice. No profits.”
  • “Cops tried to cover up a murder…..stores should sue them.”

Stores should sue them. Yes. Well no, not really, the law doesn’t work like that, but people get the power dynamic here.  You don’t go after the most isolated, reinforced, protected part of the power structure; you go after the levers that are unprotected, like downtown traffic. If that makes the store owners angry enough to turn on the political leadership, then it worked.