I was just trying to meditate and couldn’t even do it because of thoughts about tonight’s events whirling around in my mind. I know, I know, that’s what meditation is supposed to do, quell those racing thoughts, no? Well, not now.
I went to the Port Authority sham of a public meeting about the bridge and tunnel toll hikes tonight (Aug. 16) and I just had to speak. I wasn’t planning on doing so but with all the unions there and so few commuters speaking, I just had to. I’m not against unions. I belong to a union that has just been castrated by the great state of New Jersey. My father was in a union and they provided for him and our family pretty well. But, as one young woman put it, a 50% rate hike of the tolls from $8 to $12 and 2 years from now another $2 is extortion.That's not even including the people who choose not to use EZ Pass, nor the PATH riders who will pay $2.75, up $1.
It got me thinking about the muckrakers from the turn of the 20th century and investigative journalism. Where are the muckrakers and investigative journalists of the 21st century? We’re in a new Gilded Age and no one seems to notice it but me. The rich just keep getting richer, the number of poor is growing, and the working and middle classes are being squeezed between union busting in Wisconsin and New Jersey, our tax rates, tolls and other commuting costs, the price of gasoline, unemployment, and the list goes on. Who is speaking truth to power? Many of us are living in our own echo chambers and listening to those who agree with us...or we’re not listening at all. Some people whom I highly respect and admire don’t read the news or watch it. I have to admit, I rarely watch the network news unless it’s the PBS Newshour with Jim Lehrer. I abhor the 24-hour news cycle and what it does to the stories of the day; it covers garbage that really isn’t news, like whether or not Donald Trump thinks Barack Obama was born in this country and other nonsense.
When are we going to wake up and take this country back from the rich and powerful? But isn’t that redundant? The rich ARE the powerful, not us, the middle class. The level of greed, corruption, and manipulation that are going on in this country at this time is outrageous and no one seems to care. We just keep going about the business of living our lives, fiddling with our smart phones, while Rome, I mean, Washington burns.
I thought about writing a letter to Governor Cuomo about the toll hikes. He says he’ll veto it or that there should be some kind of compromise. I have since learned that behind the scenes both he and Christie support a lower increase. "Although both governors decried the sky-high hikes, privately they have agreed to smaller increases, a source said." When I thought about the content of my letter, I got tears in my eyes because I feel like it would be futile, just spitting into the wind. I am a lifelong Democrat and I feel like my party has abandoned me. I became quickly disillusioned by the choices Barack Obama made for his cabinet after being so happy and proud that he won the election in 2008. But I digress.
Muckraking. I’m going to start investigating the Port Authority corporation because it is, indeed, a corporation. Make no mistake about it. When I looked on their web site at the board of commissioners, ALL of them have some kind of vested interest or a conflict of interest, really, in this rate hike and the running of the PA. They’re involved in the financial industry, in municipal bonds, or head of one of the unions, LIUNA that would benefit if the toll hike goes into effect and extensive work is done on the bridges and tunnels. That’s what I mean about corruption. Many of the members supported the governor who nominated them to the board in some way, probably financially. It’s payback. I don’t deny that the infrastructure needs fixing, but on the backs of the middle class? Where did all the TARP money go? Where does all the money that is collected in tolls from all the bridges and tunnel go? These are just some of the questions I am going to be investigating and posting here.
And so the idea for this blog was born. I don’t want to use this forum as a place to just rant and rage like others on the lunatic fringe. I am not a lunatic, nor am I on the fringe. I know there are thousands of others who share my discontent. I want to research, ask questions that I think the mainstream media, or at least the parts of the media that claim they are investigative journalists, should be asking, and write about what I find. Maybe it will just fly out there and wander around in cyberspace and no one will read it. In a variation on ‘if a tree falls in the forest,’ if no one reads a blog, does it really exist? I hope I gain readers. I hope people will join me in speaking out about the sorry state of the middle and working classes and the poor.
