MANSFIELD: TJ Dow: Small-Time Demagogue

A pathological deceiver is winning presidential primaries all over the country by taking molehills of truths and turning them into mountains of lies. He takes the fears of working-class stiffs — their fears that an uncaring, big, bad government is going to take something from them and give it to immigrants, Muslims, blacks, gays and anyone else they hate — and uses those emotions to convince them he is the only person that can save them. Hogwash.

Ward 7 councilman TJ Dow (a broke-assed brown version of the same) utilizes the same form of lying and trickery: He plays on the fears of Hough residents — particularly the most vulnerable — the economically disadvantaged, the elderly and the undereducated — in his thinly veiled attempt to maintain an iron grip on power over residents and the ward. He’s attempting to find an “enemy” for them to blame all of their troubles and woes on. All demagogues ultimately resort to the same ugly and disingenuous tactics.

A brief history lesson is in order. One of the favorite stories of our deceased, much-beloved Councilwoman Fannie Lewis was how Sam Miller (who was on the board of Cleveland Clinic at the time) wanted to take land in Hough and turn it into a golf course for clinic doctors 40 years ago. As legend has it, Fannie fought him off tooth, nail and claw — and prevailed.

Ms. Lewis told this story over and over during her career to cast the Clinic in a negative light, but not an altogether undeserved one. For years, large, wealthy institutions all over the country that happened to be in proximity to poor neighborhoods used their might to get their way, often with little thought of playing fair with their neighbors of color. But those days and that kind of power play development began coming to an end well over a decade ago. Institutions now realize they cannot be an oasis of health and wealth in a sea of surrounding poverty and are increasingly willing to help communities around them develop. But what they are not willing to do is allow themselves to be extorted.

And this is exactly what Dow is attempting to do. He states that people in the ward are wary of the clinic and the institutions of nearby University Circle (including Case Western Reserve University),  and to a degree he’s right. Based on the legacy of distrust Fannie created, residents have every reason to be cautious when dealing with such entities. But a desire to be cautious and to not be taken advantage of shouldn’t translate into setting up barriers to negotiations, which is what Dow is doing with his stickup-man mentality.

Proof of America’s sordid history of the wealthy and powerful taking advantage of those less powerful (and more trusting) abound, going back to 1626 when Peter Minuit supposedly purchased the island of Manhattan from the Native Americans in exchange for traded goods valued at 60 Dutch guilders (approximately $24 at the time). In addition, look around any Native American reservation and the evidence of greed can be found in the destitution, despair and abject poverty. Land was stolen from the Native people.

No sentient resident of Hough wants that to happen in our community. But anyone with half an ounce of brains wants development to occur, and that development takes money. The trick is how to spur developers and large institutions to come to the table in an honest and fair manner when they want our land.

And doing so is not all that hard, that is, if the negotiators from the Hough side of the table know what they’re doing, which clearly is not the case at present. They’re saying “no” to everything because they fear their stupidity will be taken advantage of, and they are right. With their skill set they’ll get skinned like the bunch of skunks they happen to be.

Now, TJ Dow is not the first elected official who doesn’t want anyone around him that might be smarter than he is. Many other half-bright politicians feel the same way. But the real bright politicos always want to surround themselves with the brightest, most able and trusted people they can find — and then they listen to them.

When Dow first came into office — and I have to admit that I had a hand in helping him to get elected — one of the best negotiators in this part of the country (one who had a superior track record of dealing with institutions like the Clinic and Case, always doing so successfully) offered to help Dow for free, since he still had a home in the ward at that time. But a few months after getting elected, Dow wouldn’t even return his phone calls.

This cluck wanted to handle these sophisticated negotiations himself. But what he hadn’t learned is that going into a meeting with large institutions and saying “give me some money” is not negotiating — that’s extortion.

There’s still more to come on this mess.

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 again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.com.

 

 

 

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