This Is Where The Bus Stops


POST 1150

Busses are community things. They aren’t personal transportation like a car. They are everyday exercises in sharing. Trains and commercial airplanes are that way, too. None of them takes us to the door step of where we want to go, but they’re pretty good at getting us within shouting distance. And because we each kick in a few bucks when we ride instead of having to pay the full price of transportation, busses are quite inexpensive for each individual. Cities cover some costs to set up and maintain the system – after all, someone has to buy the busses – and our taxes are where that money comes from.

For the purists of the “Gotta Blame and Hate Coalition,” the “We Got It Right and You’re Wrong” chest thumpers, we have to admit that these busses, the whole city system, really, is just as you accuse: socialism. By definition it’s all of us pitching into the commons for the common good, to do collectively what we cannot do individually.

It’s the same for public libraries, police and fire departments, medical research institutions, agencies that ensure that our food is safe, our armed forces that keep the foreign bad guys away – you get the idea. We just have to reach down deep and find the courage to admit that (gasp!) sometimes we cooperate with one another. O’ the daring to admit that there’s a place here for socialism and in those places there’s pretty good stuff for all of us! And take heart: it’s still okay to wave the red, white and blue, even with the evil of socialism all about.

Back to the busses

Some think that the bus system should be overhauled, maybe scrapped entirely. It sucks up peoples’ tax dollars, they say, and it really doesn’t get us where we want to go. It drops us off and requires us to walk the rest of the way, sometimes through rain or cold or blizzards of snow or blistering heat. No matter the weather, we are left on our own to trudge along, schlepping our schlepables, no matter their bulk or weight and no matter the distance we have to walk.

Some people want the bus to take them all the way to the doorstep of their destination. They want the convenience, comfort and safety of private transportation and they want it for the price of a bus token.

“Failing to take you where you want to go is a waste, a fraud on the public and it abuses the riders,” say the phony fiscal flying monkeys. “That,” they say, “is why we want to shut it down.”

Should they do their system annihilation, the rest of us will be instantly shipwrecked, of course, but those waste, fraud and abuse (“WF&A”) fighters will thump their chests in the ecstasy of their purity of cutting government costs, regardless of the harm they do to We the People. Some un-elected, unqualified, unhinged apartheid billionaire will jump up and down like a 3-year-old pretending to be a bunny rabbit and will likely get a Presidential Medal of Freedom delivered to him by the orange co-conspirator in steep mental decline.

The destroyers don’t offer a notion of what today’s bus riders are supposed to do to get to work or school or shopping when the fighters against WF&A get their way. The fighters don’t care because they get around in chauffeured limousines and are never limited to peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch.

But that’s not how public transportation works because it can’t do that. So we have a solution. It’s called the bus stop. It’s a designated place where people go to get on a bus or to get off their bus. That is where the bus stops. Not at anyone’s house or where they work or shop. The bus stops are for all of us and we all know where the bus stops. We plan accordingly.

It’s pretty much that way for all of what government does. We do stuff collectively – for the commons – and that way the research gets done so that kids get vaccines and aren’t paralyzed from polio or killed by measles. Our military protects us from foreign bad guys, fire fighters show up to save your house, highways and city streets are built and maintained. Actually, our systems work pretty well.

The fighters of WF&A have wailed their accusations but their wailings are vacant and stupid because they haven’t identified any (as in: no) evidence of WF&A anywhere. They’ve shown no reason for wholesale butchering of our systems. No WF&A has been offered as evidence for the horrid abuse of our civil servants.

It’s okay to check for waste, fraud and abuse of the system. But overall, we like the system pretty well because it serves us well, doing what we want it to do. Look out your window and you’ll be able to see the little shelter where people board and depart their bus. That is where the bus stops. The system works.

So, We the People have a message for you WF&A guys, including the juvenile delinquent flying monkeys. Until you can find some evidence, some Earth 1 reason to change it,

GET THE F**K OFF OUR BUS!

In fact, we’re going to tell you that quite publicly over and over.

Demonstrations against the fascist thieves are scheduled for Presidents Day, tomorrow, Feb 17. That’s a really good day for millions of We The People across the country to take a stand.

Click here to find an action near you. If you don’t find something nearby, make one – there’s information for doing that at the same site. There’s a good chance a bus or a train can get you there.

REBEL!

A Bleak Anniversary

We just passed the 7th anniversary of the mass shooting murders at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL. The murdered seniors would be 25 now. The massacre occurred on Valentine’s Day, 2018. Just days before this grotesque anniversary this year President Trump shut down the Office of Gun Violence Prevention.

Read Jim Acosta’s post, A Father’s Love for his Son Takes the Stage.

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3 Responses to This Is Where The Bus Stops

  1. Frank Levy February 16, 2025 Reply

    Jack – I really like the bus analogy. It is a perfect example of what a government of the people, by the people and for the people would do. But America has rarely been about we the people, and that is not why cities built bus systems. Cities built bus systems because the oligarchs needed “we the poor people” to be able to get to their factories so “we the people” could make the products that made the oligarchs rich. It was never about what “we the people” wanted or needed. The oligarchs were ok with the people using the buses for other things, but the buses were built because the oligarchs needed them. It was always about what the oligarchs wanted.

    Now, 47 and his master Elon the Magnificent don’t want to pay for things we the people need. They, the oligarchs – especially Elon the Magnificent – believe, erroneously, that they don’t need the NIH, the CDC, the FDA, Consumer Protection, the Dept of Education, etc. more important, Elon Magnificent and his lap dog, 47, want to cut the budget because that will make more money available for the tax cuts that will put more money in their pockets. What they are willing to do or keep in place are those agencies that fund programs and projects from which they can financially benefit. They couldn’t care less about the needs of “we the people.”

    The situation is made worse because 47 and Elon the Magnificent and most of their oligarch buddies are racist, homophobic, misogynistic, antisemitic, anti-science, anti-vaxxer, xenophobic, ethno-fascist Christian nationalists – even if they could not find a church on a rainy night.

    These oligarchs are dangerous and evil. They are concerned only about themselves and increasing both their wealth and power. The fools that voted for 47 and his band of merry Christian nationalist oligarchs will soon learn that they have been duped, and that 47 has set out on a path to destroy them, their livelihoods, and their children’s future.

  2. Jay Becker February 16, 2025 Reply

    I had to laugh out loud at your conclusion! Yes, we’re social animals and infrastructure that has been built up over decades and generations is being dismantled before our eyes, at much greater cost than tax money down the drain. And how ’bout Vance’s brilliant entrance on the international stage? Telling Germans to embrace their own fascist party, one week before national elections. I can’t even be sarcastic about it, it’s so apocalyptic. Thank you for giving us a way to act.