Over the past few days my mailbox has been inundated with flyers in support of the Rapid bus millage. They touted the usual tripe about how the tax hike will boost the economy, bring peace to the community, and fill our skies with unicorms leaping over rainbows. Then there was a nice bit of mendacity about all these wonders costing only $1.50 a month in property taxes -- and if that's too much for you senior citizens, who vote in droves, you won't even have to pay that!
No surprise that the tax-and-spend crowd will peddle a lie whenever an empty promise won't hack it. What was a bit of surprise was the pattern I noticed in the pictures used in the flyers. It appears a middle-aged white man doesn't belong on a Rapid bus unless he is driving it.
Now I should confess to the thoughtcrime of being a middle-aged white man.
Thoughtcrime, you ask? How can accidents of birth be a crime of any sort? You haven't been keeping up with the multiculturists, have you? These denizens of the halls of academia will explain to you that characteristics like race and sex are mere social constructs, cultural garb we don either by choice or by brainwashing -- i.e., when The Man, through his patriarchal power structure, makes you think what he wants you think about who you are.
Now, I didn't say this wasn't lunacy. But it is ungoodthink to say so. Worse, it is doubleplusungoodthink to show how the useful idiots of the multiculturists -- for example, the RapidYes crowd, get things all upsidedown to suggest that Rosa Parks does belong in the back of the bus behind The Man. Nevertheless, they chose to play the "diversity" game in their campaign for bus millage, so let them be hoist upon their own petard.
-- wqt3
The Bus millage is all about securing short term contracts for a very few well connected people at the expense of the many. There is no need for more buses in greater Grand Rapids. So many of the buses are running empty all the time now. During early a.m. and 5 p.m. hours you get a few riders but from late morning thru afternoon and into the night the bus runs round and round on Division, Clock tower, and Clyde Park routes every day. These bus routes should have the routes decrease not increased. Many say they should put smaller van size buses in use also, because the buses never fill up in nonpeak hours. Wasting money is not a community value but the SIlverline would be a 50 million dollar waste that according to the Rapids own independent environmental study, would snarl traffic in and around Divsion. This millage would also pay for 10 more Hybrid Electric buses at a cost of 200,000 more each. These buses don't give any increase in fuel economy. George Heartwell says they are mostly for image. The only bus that is consistenly busy is the GVSU bus to Allendale and that is paid for by GVSU. The short connector from the transfer station to GVSU that students want could be put in place now with out any millage necessary. Save your money for real needs, not manufactured ones. VOTE NO May 3rd. (Interesting tidbit: George Heartwell went to the Rapid days before the last millage election and had the SIlverline rerouted OUT of Heritage Hill as they did not want the noise, congestion, and vibration. How hyprocritical to say that those who don't want this monster are anticommunity when they did not want it in there backyards!
Posted by: Jaloney | May 03, 2011 at 12:37 PM
All excellent points, Jaloney. Unfortunately, not enough taxpayers bothered to vote to defeat this waste of our money.
Posted by: Bill Tingley | May 04, 2011 at 12:55 PM