The Observation Deck

Jim,

I appreciate the positive however, your solution does nothing to mitigate the external damage done to Lakewood. An apology to the residents of a community he doesn't value is meaningless.

As Ken pointed out - Mr. Goldberg is a very important leader in the economic development movement in the county. His attitude about Lakewood could have a detrimental impact on policies and projects affecting Lakewood.

As it stands, he has an ignorant bias that needs to be exposed even if it can't be corrected. He also needs to be marginalized regionally in an attempt to protect our community. I don't want him anywhere near the strategic plans for community/county development.

Suzanne

It my sometimes small mind this becomes a dangerous and slippery slope. While we know how Goldberg feels and he will always feel that way. Even if we hold him down and give him a pink belly. In the rest of Cleveland ADD will have the affect of making this all very fogettable, unless we keep it in the forefront.

I think the best way to teach small lessons would be through the wallet, and making sure wherever he shows up in city/community/planning/finances is welcomed with a barage of letters letting the committee knows they are under the microscope.

It is very tough. My thought with the ad/charity issue, was win a samll battle, let him know Lakewood is not going to stand for this BS. Not from him, others including some of our own council members that have made rash statements on the radio and TV.

I personally know others like Goldberg, and every day is like another day in hell for them. They have framed their lives with hate, and it is reflected back again and again.

I believe it was Malcom X who said, "Better the racist you know, then the one that keeps quiet and you don't know."

FWIW


.

Jim,

My perspective on this incident is that Mr. Goldberg's comments regarding Lakewood are inconsequential compared to his comments on "Arabs". This supposed business leader has essentially called for wholesale descrimination of an entire culture. Ironic and very disturbing. The Nazis, the Klan, Hamas, Hezbohla and others espouse those same sentiments. Knowing him and ignoring him won't work - we have centuries of history that tell us that. When something is wrong, we have a responsibility to say so.

Putting a fence around crab grass won't keep it from spreading. You have to keep pulling it out by the roots. Its a long, tedious process, but it works.

.

Bigotry not withstanding, this is the kind of organization that Robert Goldberg and his family run:

http://www.clevescene.com/issues/2002-0 ... ure_2.html

Consumers beware.

Suzanne,

I agree something viable should be done to let Mr. Goldberg understand we disagree with his comments. Letters get filed and ignored. If you really want to make a difference vote with you wallet. That is the only thing haters will understand. Some would have you believe it is best to push it under the rug.
If our city "leadership" had any stones they would formally come out and address the issue, but that would require stone, which they so dearly lack around here.
Their hateful talk you cannot change, but your own behavior you can. That is why the right thing to do for all Lakewoodians offended by this comment is to vote with their wallets. Please dont wait for the Lakewood "leadership" to do anything. They are more about talk and photo ops.

God Bless America!!!
Terry

How does one vote with the wallet if one doesn't have an account at this guy's bank? I can continue to refuse to use his servicesbut how does that have any effect on him? If I had an account, sure I would close it, but do enough folks in Lakewood do that?

Suzanne's link shows some hanky panky on his bank's part with some loan issues. Could we convince local realtors who are offering loan information to their customers to not use Ohio Savings?

How does one boycott a company that one already doesn't give money to??

Phil,

Good point. We could also approach the city and see what their financial ties are to Ohio Saving Bank, if any. I like the realtor idea.


God Bless America!!!
Terry

terry batdorf wrote:Phil,

Good point. We could also approach the city and see what their financial ties are to Ohio Saving Bank, if any. I like the realtor idea.


God Bless America!!!
Terry

Phil/Terry

This are the interesting points. There are no Ohio Savings in Lakewood, and the one thing we know is we do not want one. I got a call from a resident that said, "We should make them give loans in Lakewood." I told her this borders on insanity. What we do is support the banks that support Lakewood First Federal of Lakewood.

Maybe organize picketing of other Ohio Savings institutions like downtown.

While the fax idea is good, we know that this merely palces a burden on Goldberg's staff as he nevers sees them. Might not even be told about them if he is as much of a jerk as we think.

It becomes a very tough problem, which is how he was able to go this far as the bigot he is. But now that the ball is rolling we must keeep momentum up.

.

Let's not lose sight of the big picture. Mr. G's comments regarding Lakewood are just not that important. His bias, while in the position to wield power, is.

The Goldbergs' relationship to the Cleveland Clinic, CWRU, Cleveland State, COSE, and the Cleveland Foundation give them an enormous amount of access to the issues and planning strategies affecting this region. His perceptions of who, what and where the threats are to his quality of life could have a big impact on our quality of life.

Ohio Savings isn't in Lakewood because it chooses not to be. I don't care about that. Lakewood has financial institutions that continually bolster the community, its organizations and its citizens. First Federal is on the top of my list but Dollar Bank, and National City are on MY list too. I don't need another financial institution who simply wants to plunder the easy pickens to set up shop here - Charter One comes to mind, but that's another thread.

I do care that this guy could help craft regional plans that might disenfranchise our community. How do we change that?

Mr Goldberg's comments are quite disconcerting indeed.

In answer to your question, Suzanne, I suggest that it all comes back to ownership of our territory, our turf, our institutions, our destiny.

To the extent that Mr. Golderg's hateful perception is internalized by the body politic in Lakewood, feelings of community coherance will be replaced by feelings of marginalization, of inadequacy.

Goldberg's spin frames Lakewood as non-compliant within the regional paradigm for "post-modernization", i.e. the separation of; ethno-religious identities from the mainstream body politic, sans Israeli ethnocentrism, and instituational resistance to privitizing(read: regionalizing) forces from that body politic.

In this regard, Lakewood, as home to many Arab refugees, is marginalized within the "post-modern progress" framework of regionalization. We become the black sheep, the underclass dust-bin of the taliban, hezbolah, and underclass under-acheivers......in short, those in need of neoliberal market discipline to set our community vision straight.

Within Goldberg's frame, an acceptable Lakewood is one that hands over its Libraries and Health and Human Services department to the county, schools to the charter sector, municipal funds to private developers, and public goods and services in general to the private sector. All the while, political power is removed from the people at the municipal level, and concentrated at the county, then state. (note, Voices and Choices identifies the relevant "region" as the entire N.E. corner of the state, including 15 counties. An obvious move towards greater state envolvment in muni affairs.)

Resistance? It's all about how we as Lakewoodites choose to know ourselves within the ever advancing regionalism agenda, levied by the very foundations and power players Suzanne has mentioned above... the Goldberg cabal of bankers, realtors and developers.

The regionalization effort with likely continue along this trajectory, de-humanizing our beautiful community. We are only dehumanized when we accept and interiorize neo-liberal rhetoric such as Goldberg's.

A smart strategy of critically intelligent resistance to neoliberal carbet bagging would include city council drilling down on the history of regional governance models, examining their effects on community coheasivenss, democartic self-rule, fiscal stability and quality of community life in general.

It would be wise for council to understand these challenges within a comprehensive framework that transcends those claims advanced by neoliberal (read: regionalist) pundents.

Sir, I don't do the back channel.

The idea's are not so advanced. I read neo-liberalism as the ideological devise by which globalization meme's are spread accross the promised land, and globe.

It matters not what the players religious/secular affiliations, ethnic identities are. These are memes. Or, rather, human beings infected with destructive perceptions.

Neo-conservatism is, in effect, the activation of memes of religious fundementalism to acheive strategic goals of globalization. Neo-conservatism fits very neatly within the neolib paradigm without violating it's essential tenets of; concenration of power at high levels of government, concenration of wealth at the highest levels of elitehood and the holy grail of inducing a third world, world. "The most friendly business environment known to homo-economicus"

this is the retorhic of regionalism, too.
-we're not competitive enough for global capital
-we must complete with India and China for jobs!
-local governments get in the way because the are nearly the last (and, notably, the most solid) thing preventing the complete dessimation of the US social contract.

Do the politicians know which of themselves are neo-liberal and which are neo-conservative?

Ryan:

Politicians may not know. However it is, more importantly, possible for you to know.

First identify the politician.

Then look at the tactical applications of power.

Is the tactical application of power hard (see Joseph Nye for an analysis of power dynamics) ala Neo-Con Imperial Globalism?

Is the tactical application of power soft ala Neo-liberal Market Globalism?

For more on Power and Globalization see Manfred Steger’s essay:

http://www.globalism-nationalism.org/pu ... 202005.pdf

Because Mr. Goldberg is a banker and deeply engaged in economic development strategies, his remarks which bring the narrative of World War III home to Lakewood through a hard power register sound doubly alarming, as Dan Slife's post suggests.

Even if erupting from his political unconscious, Mr. Goldberg's remarks suggest a double global power play is needed to discipline and dispossess, as Dan Slife suggests, the local "black sheep" of Lakewood in order for larger accumulations of capital commence in the region.

As "street" culture must be displaced for the sake of the accumulation that comes from gentrification downtown and the shoreway and the build-up around Cleveland Clinic, Lakewood becomes the new container for the displaced poor.

In the narrative captured by Beth Rankin that sandwiches Lakewood between a large Arab population and anti-Semites, it sounds as if a little hard power is required to straighten out our homies.

Kenneth Warren

I was a bit confused in the original article that Mr. Warren had posted, the comment was attributed to “Bob Goldbergâ€Â