Work to Do
You can't reform a totally broken system.
I’m seeing a lot of my white friends on Instagram Live returning to a life of brunches, vacations and drinks at the bar. Hard to believe we haven’t whipped racism yet with commitment like that from the privileged class!
Anyway, please subscribe to my newsletter as I swear the price on a brick is going up this week.
DEMOCRATIC LEADERS: WE STILL LOVE OUR BRUTAL POLICE :)
Reptilian Republicans controlling state government is one of the most depressing things about living in Ohio. The second most depressing thing is big-city Democrats having politics closer to Ronald Reagan than anything required of our current moment.
Democrats have watched protests erupt in every city in the state. Some protests are simply a few high school students standing at a busy intersection holding signs kindly asking police to stop killing their black friends.
On the other end you have Columbus, which has seen police rolling around in blacked-out vans shooting wooden bullets and tear gas canisters at protestors running away from them.
“Defund the Police,” has become the mantra. Abolishing the police has become the goal.
The Centrists aren’t ready for that discussion which is why they’re trying to reform the sloganeering to “Reform the Police.” As if we would still be in this situation if police hadn’t fought every inch of reform throughout their entire history which can be directly traced to the slave-catcher platoons of the 19th century.
From Andy Chow of wosu.org:
The city of Columbus plans to spend $359 million on its police department this year. A budget forecast from the Cleveland's mayor showed the city spending $218 million for police in 2020. And in Cincinnati, the city's police budget for the current fiscal year was $151 million.
While Santiago's group wants to completely defund the police, there are other politicians and demonstrators who believe police can still play a role, while more money is diverted to other programs.
Columbus City Council member Shayla Favor says what Minneapolis leaders are moving toward is their decision, but says she wants Columbus to consider other options.
"What I am calling for is an openness to put things on the table that we thought were not even possible two or three weeks ago," Favor says. "I think everything is possible at this point. I just don't know what that looks like, I'm open to having those hard conversations with our police as well as with our residents to figure out what that looks like."
What Councilwoman Favor is calling for nothing at all. Our leaders have no thoughts; they would just rather pass the buck to “tough discussions with police as well with our residents to figure out what that looks like.”
What it looks like is the Columbus police have infinite resources to squash peaceful protests while our infrastructure and schools crumble.
Meandering politicians in search of an original thought is the only type of politician that an electoral machine like the Franklin County Democratic Party can produce.
Thankfully, change is inevitable. We have already reached the phase where a majority of Americans have switched to supporting Colin Kaepernick for doing protesting police brutality “the right way.” That’s called the Martin Luther King metamorphosis.
If the Centrists want to continue down this road, we will simply have to revisit this whenever the police inevitably do what police do which is harass and murder black and poor people. Nothing short of abolishing the police and re-imagining police work will deliver the change we need.
By that time politicians like Shayla Favor will already be onto a new challenge: Lobbying their former colleagues on behalf of wealthy corporations.
THE PANDEMIC COMPOUNDS THE EPIDEMIC
Remember those two weeks when Ohio Republicans pretended to care about increased overdoses and suicides due to the coronavirus shutdown? Well, the economy is back to being 99% open and suddenly they’re back to not caring.
It’s a shame considering they were right. Any economic downturn is sure to amplify the thrum of addiction that beats under the American economy in even the best of times.
From Ryan Schmelz of spectrumnews1.com:
CLEVELAND, Ohio — There has been a dramatic rise in drug overdose deaths in some Ohio counties, hitting near record levels during the month of May.
…
Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner Dr. Thomas Gilson says at least 66 people died from an overdose in May.
"This is unusual. If it sustains itself, it’s going to put a big burden on a lot of different resources," said Dr. Gilson. "It’s a big blow to the community to start to see so many people dying."
Some experts believe restarting certain parts of the economy has led to an influx of fentanyl use.
"We were very concerned about this because for the very heavy opiate user, their tolerances would be down, making them more susceptible to overdoses and death. But we also know that fentanyl is mixed in with cocaine, crack cocaine and methamphetamine. Those users have zero tolerance. Our concern was that if fentanyl opened up in this big influx, we would be overwhelmed with overdoses and deaths and that’s exactly what happened."
I’m not sure how much I believe fentanyl is mixed with cocaine, crack or methamphetamine. If it were that deadly and that prominent, we’d have a lot more cocaine overdoses than we do.
That doesn’t change the fact fatal overdoses are spiking. These numbers are only going to get worse as the economy continues to slide later this year when we inevitably have to shut down again due to coronavirus outbreaks.
EXPERTS: THAT FOSSIL FUEL PLANT WON’T BE A JOB BONANZA IF YOU CAN BELIEVE THAT
Rural counties are make tasty prey for big business. Rural areas are desperate to return to the pre-NAFTA days, and their politicians are equally eager to be seen as bringing jobs — any jobs — to their regions that corporations extrapolate for wealth.
One such project is an ethane-ethylene cracker plant on the famously clean Ohio River in Belmont County.
Cracker plants are associated with such things like increased rates of asthma, lung and respiratory infections, heart problems, fatigue, nausea, poor birth outcomes, and neurological issues such as memory impairment.
Why would anyone want something like that in their community? Because JOBS! Well, it turns out the Belmont cracker plant has been oversold in that regard, too.
From Beth Burger of dispatch.com:
With the price of plastic plummeting and a global oversaturation of ethane-ethylene cracker plants and plastics manufacturing, experts are cautioning Ohio about moving forward with an ethylene cracker plant along the Ohio River in Belmont County.
State officials have touted the multibillion-dollar project, saying it would be Ohio’s largest economic development project ever. The plant would provide thousands of temporary construction jobs and a couple hundred permanent jobs.
But a group of eight economists, engineers, public policy analysts, and former policymakers — including researchers from Ohio State University and the University of Akron — have written a letter dated Monday warning the governors of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia that they are not likely to see a major petrochemical industry expansion in the region or the jobs they promoted.
Hmmm…. whomst to believe? A coterie of unbiased experts or greedy capitalists and their flunkie politicians? Honestly it’s hard to say.
What’s sad is that this plant will come to fruition because we spit on Eastern Ohio. We’re going to further pollute the region so a select few can generate wealth and ship it out of state while a handful of local workers are inevitably underpaid and overworked. Great system
DAVE YOST PAID ALL THAT MONEY TO GO TO CLOWN SCHOOL
The Supreme Court surprised me yesterday when it ruled, 6-3, that American businesses can’t fire employees for being gay or transgender. That this decision was hailed as somewhat of a shocker tells you all you need to know about the state of our courts in 2020.
Contempt aside, yesterday was a banner day for gays, transgenders and their allies. It was also a great day for people who enjoy watching Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost eat shit in the court of law.
The Ohio Republican Party presents themselves as arch-fiscal conservatives, which is hilarious considering they routinely deploy Dave Yost to waste taxpayer money in federal court. It’s almost enough to make me feel bad for him. Almost.
DOES AKRON REALLY NEED AN APP FOR THAT?
I talked earlier about rural politicians desperate to land a score. The same applies to post-industrial towns like Akron, which have apparently outsourced the basic functions of government to Israeli app developers for some reason???
From Jonathan Shieber of techcrunch.com:
Thanks to the work of the city’s deputy mayor for integrated development, James Hardy, Akron is the first city to roll out services from an Israeli-based company called Colu. A startup backed by just over $20 million in financing from American and Israeli investors, the company has developed an app-based rewards service that cities can roll out to provide perks to users.
In Akron’s case, the initiative rewards points for shopping at local businesses that can be redeemed for discounts at those stores. The initial effort, which includes a platform for businesses to market directly to the app’s users, focuses on businesses owned by women and minorities (a response to the movement for racial justice that has sprung up in the wake of the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis).
Akron is the first city of what Colu founder Amos Meiri expects to be a nationwide rollout throughout the US. The company already has managed to ink another agreement with the city of Chula Vista, Calif.
I don’t want to even imagine the corruption that goes into a foreign company securing an app with a city like Akron. My question is… why can’t the local government promote this stuff? Why did they have to outsource making an app to a foreign government?
This will inevitably be hailed as a breakthrough public-private sector relationship… only for it to be exposed within the next decade as a financial boondoggle that did little to move the actual needle. Feel free to fave this tweet.
THOSE WMDs. The great heavy metal hoax… Life after the Wuhan lockdown… Sorry, Olivia Benson is cancelled, too… This is what happens to your body when you drink enough water… Is it more important to run faster or longer?