Friday, June 17, 2005

Give Amtrak the fucking money it wants.

I feel sorry for David Gunn, the president of Amtrak, I really do. It cannot be a pleasant gig, where every year you have to basically go begging to the US congress for money to keep your company afloat. But more than David Gunn, I feel sorry for the poor moronic souls in the heartland of the country who, on the basis of some misguided patriotic urge or religious zeal or whatever it was that made them abandon common sense to vote for George Bush. The guy who they thought they would like to have a beer with. But, while I empathize with these simple folks, there is a part of me that wants to drive up to each and every home in Virginia, the Carolinas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and every other jesus loving state of the United States of America, knock on their doors and lovingly give every single citizen the finger. No, make it two fingers. Because, you know, the Northeast, after Amtrak is gone, will take a plane to wherever it wants to go. Sure, airports will be more crowded, roads will be more clogged, the collective blood pressure of the populace will explode, killings over road space will probably occur, but they will have alternative means of getting about. What will happen to you now, you poor creatures of the hinterland? What will you do? Do you feel betrayed? Your republican congressmen sure do. Thats why they are crawling about on all fours trying to get your beloved jackass of a president not to destroy Amtrak. Cos', apart from your horse buggies and your shitty tractors that go 5 miles an hour, really, what other means of transportation do you really have? And it makes me (just a part of me that is) really really happy that if, Amtrak does survive, all the trains that go through your crappy little redneck villages will be gone, but those in the Northeast will still remain. Chew on that.

But why is the little nutjob in the white house doing this? Take a look at the rest of the world. Europe, Asia, practically everywhere else in the world, governments are innovating their railroad systems. It is practically obvious to anyone other than President Bunnypants that while it is always good to keep oil company executives fat and satisfied, the future of transportation HAS to be railways. NOT cars. Railways. So, Mr President, stop treating Amtrak like an illegitimate offspring and fucking give Amtrak the 1.8 billion they want. Give them fucking 10 billion if they want. How in the world, Mr President, can you spend 300 billion in an illegitimate war, which will probably go on forever, eating up what meagre government spending you can afford, and not give Amtrak the measly 2 billion it wants for a year? Chew on that.

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