Join the fight against racism

For millennia, racism has been a strategy to keep people divided in the face of oppression. Today bankers and other financial crooks have used their corporate-controlled media to keep it alive and strong.

The key to their propaganda is to make people think that too many other people are racist or apathetic, and the task of winning them is too exhausting.

The recent rebellion in the US has exposed this lie. Most people are not racist. Most people see how it hurts everyone. Most people are sick of it. Most people want unity against oppression.

We must keep this going until this strategy of division is no longer usable.

Fighting #racism is critical to winning #freepublictransit

Racism keeps people divided, poor, and politically weak.

All working and poor people are adversely affected.

All.

The very small percent who profit from racism would like us to think that it is about personal preference and there is nothing can be done. That is not true. Racism is for profit, money, power.

We need to show people that when we don't fight racism, we hand victory to our oppressor.

Thorough debunking of fares, means-testing, and #racism

Given that the pay-per-ride system for public transit is regressive, unjust, and cuts against the benefits of having mass transit even in a simplistic Econ 101 universe, there are shockingly few American cities that offer free and universal transit. Even internationally, pay-per-ride is the norm. What’s happening here? The answer is that cities around the world have been convinced that making public transit free invites only “undesirable” riders. This is disappointing to put it mildly, but I think it offers us a valuable lesson in how to approach our arguments for universalizing services.

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2020/01/why-free-stuff-is-good 

Car dependency a crushing weight on the backs of poor people

In The Appeal: Political Report in April, Daniel Nichanian wrote about obstacles to mobility for people living in North Carolina. Driver’s licenses were revoked for 1.2 million people in the state for failing to pay court fees and fines, without any opportunity to demonstrate their inability to pay. The inability to legally drive, in a state with poor transit options, can have disastrous consequences for people’s access to employment and make the same fees and fines that led to their license suspension even more impossible to pay. 

Nichanian wrote: “Poor transportation, whether it stems from difficulties in acquiring a car or accessing transit, can harm the reentry of people who are involved in the criminal legal system, independently of whether they are eligible to have a driver’s license.” This also underscored “the pernicious nature of ideas like a New York proposal to ban people from using the subway for life if they have been convicted of certain offenses.”

https://theappeal.org/kansas-city-chooses-free-public-transit/ 

Wow! Kansas City Mayor spills the beans on subsidy and racism!

Quinton Lucas: A few years ago in Kansas City, we brought back our streetcar system. It’s a short route that runs into downtown. We made all rides free. The area where the streetcar is is a higher-income, majority white, gentrified area. That started the talk of why are we subsidizing free rides to people making good money, but the clientele on the bus system in the largely black parts of town are still forced to pay?

...Lucas: Fares cover about $8 million a year, but we lose $1.5 million in collecting fares. The shortfall is about $6 million, and we can find that in the budget. The streetcar took $2 million from buses to [get the project started]. It was necessary startup funding in 2014, but in 2019 and 2020 it’s not.

The other step is improving how we spend money to stimulate economic development. After the recession, national firms came to us and said we’ll invest in downtown, but in exchange we need real guarantees and asked us to subsidize parking-garage costs. [In the last 10 years] taxpayers spent about $100 million subsidizing parking garages for these companies. 

...Lucas: We’ve crunched the numbers. Finding a few million in a large city budget is not that hard. We can wax poetic about fairness and equity in workforce opportunity, but there’s nothing more clear to me than saying, “Let’s help people, for many of whom $2,000 will make a world of difference.”

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/ask-an-expert-kansas-city-is-exploring-free-transit-should-seattle/ 

Racist terror in NYC

link to photo on Twitter

More than 60 percent of people arrested for fare evasion in the second quarter of the year were black or African-American, according to the most recent fare evasion data published by the NYPD. Another 25 percent were listed as “Hispanic.”
https://queenseagle.com/all/people-of-color-account-for-85-percent-of-fare-evasion-arrests 

Fare-free #publictransit would solve the problem of racist fare enforcement

It may sound strange, but the esoteric topic of fare collection has become one of the most polarizing in public transportation. And it’s likely to get worse—unless we start rethinking the idea of transit fares entirely. ...

...According to the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, 91 percent of summons for fare evasion in the District between January 2016 and February 2018 were issued to African-Americans.

https://www.citylab.com/perspective/2019/02/washington-fare-evasion-free-public-transport-train-ticket/582160/ 

Elites sow division as their ship approaches next iceberg

The US elites divide people

• racism - police murders and racist marches
• gender - (incel meme, me-too 'backlash')
• generation - x vs y vs boomer
• gun 'debate' - the real gun question is how to define 'responsible' gun owner

Fake school shootings are created from security drills and used to test the ability of the corporate media to overcome social media and control what people believe. They want people begging for harsher government.

The elites know that the next bubble burst will bring unemployment to 30%. There is just no future in a system where half the office workers are keeping track of debt.The US system is based on $trillions in liquid-fuel infrastructure.

• pipelines
• tankers, road, rail, water
• refineries
• roads, highways
• suburbs
• military
• fracking and drilling rigs
• health costs of cars, collision, pollution

There is too much deferred maintenance and debt, and too little cash flow.When public services start falling apart, people will start fighting back. They want them divided as much as possible.

Americans do not have the understanding needed to prevent fascism

People are noticing that the conditions in the US are drifting to fascism, and are asking how to stop it.

A lot of people think that as long as the middle class has some rights there is hope to turn things around.

But very few understand that the US is locked in to a liquid fuel system. The economics of unwinding trillions of dollars worth of fixed, hard, autosprawl assets do not compute. Even a financial crash would not be enough.

This is the power behind the racism and inequality. As long as a significant number of people see the leafy suburb as a goal. There will be no relief. 

Don't let your enemy choose your leaders

Kingdoms that provide an outlet for their opponents last longer. This one of the major lessons reserved for the crown prince and selected scholars.

Capitalism provides us with "opposition" leaders that they control. On this blog, we try to expose them and their tricks.

One sign of a fake radical is the use of the word "white" as in "white privilege, white supremacy," etc.
This reinforces the idea of race. First, it implies that there is such a thing as race. [There is no such thing.] Second, it implies that people believe things because of their color [race]. Third, it pushes poor white people to the right.

By allowing this wording, we set ourselves up to be fooled. It also is a capitulation to oppression, by implying that if the oppressor were a different color, all would be well. Racism is a strong tool of capitalist oppression. Fake radicals are trying to keep it strong by using word trickery.

Follow truth wherever it leads

The US empire is in deep trouble. It has bet everything on an unsustainable investment of trillions in autosprawl hard assets. Highways, pipelines, ocean tankers, highway tankers, rail tankers, refineries, parking lots, spread out water systems, sewer systems, electrical grid, bridges, and tunnels.

Now they have miscalculated in MENA and cannot guarantee control over the last of the cheap oil, the oil in Kirkuk.They cannot control the transmission of gas from the Caspian to the markets of South Asia.

They cannot care for their own people. They fear rebellion and are working hard to promote racism and other divisions.

This is what is driving US policy. Ignore the corporate media. Turn off the TV.

#crisisactors, racism, #autosprawl meltdown

The US empire is in decline. There is no money to pay for the upkeep of all the highways, bridges, and cul-de-sacs.

A recent uptick in oil price caused a sudden correction in the stock market, while borrowed billions are spent on wars to keep the oil coming.

The staged school "shootings" are designed to ramp up racism and division. The elites want to divide us into "liberals" who call for more government control, and "conservatives" who want more guns for racist reasons.

They are working hard at dividing and distracting us. They will need us fighting each other when unemployment is suddenly 30 percent.

Hopkins mayoral candidate says light rail would bring 'trash from Minneapolis'

KMSP : ""All the Chicago and Detroit riff raff who have moved into 'Welfare-apolis', they are going to get on that train and you know where they are going to end up - at The Depot with yours and yours and yours' granddaughters and grandsons," Ivers said during the forum."

Reasons for #publictransit. Fight racism.

81% of Trump voters oppose #publictransit cuts

Trump Administration's 'Skinny Budget' Cuts Infrastructure Investment: "According to a recent APTA poll, most Americans, including President Trump supporters, would not support these cuts to public transportation. A 2016 poll showed that 3 out of 4 Americans support increased public transportation investment. Additionally, a November election poll found that 81 percent of Americans who voted for Donald Trump oppose any cuts to the current levels of public transportation investment."

The autosprawl industry has fooled voters for many years with various coalitions of racism, religious extremism, and phony fiscal conservatism. One elected, they resume the attack on public transit. Public transit, implemented properly, exposes the subsidy of the autosprawl system. Once people have choice of travel they see that subsidy of cars is an unnecessary burden.

Americans vote for racism and then wonder why there's no buses

Center for Transportation Excellence: "“This remarkable passage rate for public transportation measures sends a strong message to President-elect Donald Trump and to  Congress that Americans support moving forward with funding from all levels of government that connects infrastructure investment with job opportunities and our country’s economic vitality,” said APTA Acting President and CEO Richard A. White."

Ballot measures prove year after year that Americans want public transit. Why don't they get it? Because they vote for oil trolls. The oil industry has known for a long time that is can't win politically, so it cobbles together "tea parties" and such which are mainly just racism. So a voter was liquidating a retirement account to buy a car, his friend asked why not take the bus. There is no bus. Well, his friend says, you should fight racism. Huh?

Country full of bus lovers, congress full of oil trolls. Democracy?

masstransitmag : " the public's support for expanded access to public transportation. Its analysis showed that more than 73 percent of Americans support using tax dollars to create, expand and improve public transportation in their communities."

How is this possible. Over seventy percent of Americans want their tax money spent on public transit, but in the congress one can't even get support to maintain existing  transit.

Here's how. The people who profit from the auto and sprawl are many. The oil companies, the auto companies, the sprawl home builders, home heating and cooling energy suppliers, electricity suppliers, furniture and durable consumer good suppliers, ... etc. But even so, there is still a majority that wants public transit. So how do the anti-transit people get in power.

Led by the oil companies, this has been their strategy for years. Cobble together an alliance based on racism, religion, guns, patriotism, etc. That way people are never actually "voting for oil," they are voting for some other issue. They don't realized they are stabbing themselves in the back. So the autosprawl profiteers have 90 percent of one party. To get the other party, they promote "development." More roads, more suburbs, more economic growth. They only need about 30 or 40 percent of the second party.

The issue is never debated on the question: "Are cars killing us?"

ISIS the tip of an iceberg

For centuries colonial powers slashed, burned, and looted their way through the world. Even north America felt the sting.

When capitalism took over, things got worse.

France war-crimes in Algeria - Caution Graphic

Now the tide is turning. The complex society of capitalism, technology, and cheap energy is no longer sustainable. Actually, it never was sustainable, it just survived on the lag between deferred costs and the time of payment. But now, in liquid fuels, the crash has begun. Every joule now costs more joules, every day. It cannot go the other way. Printed money has helped to defer payment, but the debt due to nature will be paid, one way or another. There is no man-made law, real or imagined, that is above the laws of physics.

Corporate capitalism, though monopolistic, is still a system of competition. Now the competition is for the last of the easy-to-get liquid fuel, the oil under Kirkuk, Iraq. The war for this oil, and other lesser reservoirs, has opened up the flood gates of centuries of anti-colonial anger. There is no amount of propaganda or weapons to stop the coming flood. Accommodation is the only hope.

If you are a first-world resident, move to town, sell your car, campaign for free transit. Support free education for all children, oppose oil wars, fight racism, defend Muslims.

Is the Tea Party anti-business?

The article below is more evidence that the tea party is a creation of, by, and for the oil industry. Their job is to shore up the the failing "gays-guns-god-[and-racism]" coalition that has traditionally allowed the oil-auto-sprawl industry to keep its trolls in office. Public transit is a huge threat to oil, but most other businesses want more of it.

The price of tea party politics in Troy, Michigan: investors walking away « Blogging for Michigan: "Lots of talk these days from conservatives and tea partiers in particular about too much government spending. Rather than seeing government spending as the investment that it often is, they see nearly all government spending as waste to be eliminated. As I wrote yesterday, tea party mayor of Troy, Michigan, Janice Daniels, led a coalition of like-minded tea partiers to kill off a transit center project that was a decade in the making, kissing off $8.4 million in federal investment funds to help make the project happen."

If you want to help speed up the demise of oil-power, join the campaign for free public transit.