MANSFIELD: Saving Hough: A Slam Dunk Victory Today

Hough

In my previous installment of “Saving Hough” I chronicled a community meeting that was held to ponder if an ice cream parlor should be allowed to open in the community, right across the street from the fabled League Park. What could be more American than baseball and ice cream cones?

But this is Hough, where a strange type of politics has taken hold over this five or six years: Our councilman, TJ Dow, is so opposed to something as innocuous as a soda fountain that he makes up lies in an attempt to scare his constituency.

He said at the meeting (and there was a tape recorder running) that such a bad, out-of-control element would be attracted to the ice cream parlor to deal their drugs that gunfire would constantly erupt and “kids would have to hide under their beds” in an effort to save their own lives.

Well, the Cleveland Zoning Board of Appeals met today to rule on the objection to the ice cream parlor, and, in spite of Dow attempting to twist the truth into something completely unrecognizable, the board voted unanimously to allow Hough to progress. We won … but we know, like a bad case of jock itch, Dow will be back with other underhanded schemes to derail the legitimate efforts of those of us who want to see our beloved community develop to its fullest potential.

But something struck me about the meeting today. Dow was pulling the exact same kind of lying stunts that the piece of shit now occupying the White House likes to pull. Dow even shares his initials since “DJT” read backwards are “TJD.” Creepy, right?

However, what is worse is the fact that Dow, similar to Trump, has some hardcore followers that believe any lie he tells and give him a pass on all of his abhorrent behavior. When the councilman was caught not paying taxes for five years, these weak-minded souls dismissed it as a reporter just picking on him.

Singling him out, right?

Some Hough residents have gotten into the foolish habit of not believing what they do not want to believe, no matter the evidence. It makes no difference to them what the truth is; they’ll find a way to put their delusional spin on it. If Dow is accused of not calling residents back (something everyone knows he’s as guilty as hell of), his ignorant followers will simply say, “He didn’t return phone calls because he was so busy taking care of business for the ward.” Yeah, and I guess that’s why he missed more City Council committee meetings than anyone else in the almost 200-year history of that body … he was too busy taking care of “bidnizz.”

Mark Twain once said, “It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.” The fact is, Dow has a small core group of followers who have been so fooled that they are going to stick with him even if he gets caught in bed with a dead woman or a live boy. Some folks are just stuck on stupid, and there’s nothing to be done about them.

But what has to happen is now that the saner residents of Hough have come together, we have to stay together until this pestilence — this plague upon our ward — is brought to an end. We won today, but we cannot afford to go back to sleep. The November elections are coming and it’s imperative that we win again.

mansfield250

From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author at http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.com

Post categories:

One Response to “MANSFIELD: Saving Hough: A Slam Dunk Victory Today”

  1. Victor Lucas

    Another great article, Mansfield. You patiently push back against a lying politician TJD with facts and some satirical zingers. Satire is important in such situations. See (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fUDIucr2eo) Vox on “Comedians have figured out the trick to covering Trump.”

Leave a Reply

[fbcomments]