Hissssss —“Snake Alert, Snake Alert”
The 2009 political season is now in full swing, and, similar to ants showing up uninvited at a picnic, political reptiles of every ilk, stripe and coloration are currently slithering about in the grass spreading their venomous brand of realpolitik.
The first critter, the deadly “Forked-Tongue Sidewinder” has all of Ohio as its habitant — it can be found in all 88 counties. It can readily be identified by the distinctive green markings on it head that resemble dollar signs, and the high-pitched sound it emits … “Jobz, jobz, jobz.” Anyone bitten by this snake will be turned into a babbling idiot who will then vote to allow greedy developers to set the price they will pay the state for the privilege of raking in billions of dollars at casinos around Ohio.
Herpetologists suspect that this snake has already bitten most members of the State Legislature, since they failed to put in place a bidding process for the right to operate casinos … a move that could have brought billions into state coffers for education.
Similar to other political snakes, the Sidewinder’s only response to criticism is the oft-told lie, “Hey, we’re going to create these thousands of jobs for Ohio’s workers!”
Yeah, right, sure. Just like every other project the public is hoodwinked into supporting. If all of the jobs the voting public has been promised over the years by developers had materialized, each resident of Cuyahoga County would have two jobs, maybe even three.
Next up we have the “Yellow-Bellied Double-Crosser.” A whole nest of these noxious creatures was discovered hiding under rocks near the County Administration Building. Their bite has been known to induce public panic for what they call “reform.” These creatures have seized on a real need for honest reform, but instead have come up with a scheme that includes the concerns of some folks, while leaving other folks and their issues out of the equation. When they are asked why judicial reform was not included, they go suddenly silent. If they really wanted to be inclusive they would have changed the way judges are elected countywide. Since they are proposing to create 11 districts, why not elect judges from those districts? They snakes are ashamed to tell the truth: Any reform that might make things fairer for minorities in the county would piss off suburban (read: white) voters and thus doom this jerry-rigged reform to failure.
One of these snakes, who is using the county corruption probe (and Kevin Kelly, et. all) as the reason reform is needed, has yet to come clean about how many trips they took to out-of-state casinos with Kelly and other local vipers. One trip has been documented and admitted to, are there more?
The Double-Crosser has also been known to hiss “Jobz, jobz, jobz,” but in the form of new county-wide development. They blame the current three-commissioner system for every county ill (including the Cuyahoga River catching fire, I suppose) going back a hundred years, and promise that one single county administrator will solve all of our problems, and bring back Ford, General Motors, and Republic Steel in their spare time. Yeah, right. The questions these reptiles don’t answer are: Who the hell is this Super Man (or Woman) that will magically appear to save us after we change forms of government? Where are they now, and won’t this person come from the same gene pool we’ve been fishing from for innumerable decades? How will this person — single-handedly the Double-Crosser promises — find the time to do all of this economic development while running the county at the same time? Isn’t that why county governments around the nation hire trained specialists for development positions? But, as the Double-Crosser is fond of hissing, “Why waste a perfectly good corruption scandal by doing this in a reasoned, measured, and inclusive manner?”
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://www.frombehindthewall.com.(:divend:)