$800K For Streetcar Study In Cincinnati—More Warped Priorities At The Expense Of Average People

Cincinnati City Council has allocated $800,000 for the study of streetcar routes in Cincinnati.

This despite failing schools and failing neighborhoods.

You the blog reader know this racket from what I’ve already told you.

Street cars will revitalize the city and make Cincinnati a fun place to visit!

( Above you see that while Cincinnati is considering streetcars, it is falling behind Tokyo in bullet trains.)

The gains from installing street cars will trickle down from Downtown and the inner-core to the entire city!

We need street cars just as we needed taxpayer subsidized department stores Downtown, and taxpayer subsidized stadiums!    

Sure.

These street cars are proposed to run only Downtown and in a very small number of areas close to Downtown. 

You can bet property owners along possible streetcar lines are excited.

When you oppose these types of projects you’re told you lack vision. 

Yet so often the so-called civic boosters and rah-rah types who advocate this nonsense, urge pragmatism and restraint when it comes to addressing the needs of the poor.       

It is hard not to be angry at the city councilmembers who enable this stuff at the request of their corporate donors and owners.

It is a difficult and life-long lesson to direct your efforts at the right people 

You have to realize it is structural and that in most cases when you get rid of one bad councilmember, he or she is replaced by another one responsive to the same interests. 

These priorities are set by people who have little contact with the day-to-day facts, for both good and ill, of living in Cincinnati.

This kind of thing goes on in cities across the nation.

But you can’t give up.  

Citizens must establish the civic priorities by voting, remaining informed and speaking out.

Citizens must be able to imagine a better and more just future than that offered by the same people who have brought the urban decline of recent years.

Otherwise, what you get are underused streetcar routes to Nero-like stadiums while neighborhoods decline and clear out.     

Why I Liked Senator Obama’s Speech On Race

Here are the reasons I liked Senator Barack Obama’s recent speech on race—

1. By correctly refusing to disown Pastor Jeremiah Wright, Mr. Obama showed loyalty.  

2. By speaking at length about the good points and bad points of the black church, Mr. Obama acknowledged the basic humanity and complexity of the average person.

3. By addressing the historical experience of both blacks and whites in the United States, Senator Obama asked us to consider context. This is something increasingly rare in our fragmented quick-paced society. Yet context is a starting point of seeing the lives of others in a humane and caring way.

4. By speaking in a reasonably forthright manner about a difficult subject, Mr. Obama respected the intelligence of the average voter.    

5. By offering the opportunity to move past divisive racial concerns in the 2008 Election, Senator Obama offered voters a positive choice.   

Here is a good USA Today story on the speech.—(No, you don’t need to read the 11,821 comments so far made about the story.) 

Here is the complete transcript of the speech.

Here is the Obama campaign web page.