Revolting. Yesterday it seemed that New York City Mayor (and multi-billionaire, and probable Presidential candidate) Michael Bloomberg's "congestion pricing" scheme was off the table due to opposition in the State Legislature. Today, however, reports have it being resurrected. The benefits of the measure are assuredly exaggerated, and to institute it would require the expenditure of literally hundreds of millions of dollars! The New York Daily News reports today:

State leaders and Mayor Bloomberg were on the brink of a deal last night on a far-reaching traffic congestion relief plan for the city — one that could qualify for some $536 million in federal startup funds, officials told the Daily News.

Why on Earth should any revenue-PRODUCING measure require HALF A BILLION DOLLARS in startup costs?
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The preposterous cost of instituting such a system is the least of it. The plan is just plain immoral and must be stopped. The poor and middle class of New York City and its suburbs in New York State, New Jersey, and Connecticut must be prepared to take this fite to the streets, before those streets are stolen rite out from under them.
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I sent the following message today to New York's Governor Elliot Spitzer, NYS Senate President Joseph Bruno, and NYS Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.

You must stop "congestion pricing", which is an effort by the rich to steal the streets from the poor and middle class who built them and own them, for the exclusive use of the rich. It is morally, and probably constitutionally, impermissible to steal public property and turn it over to the rich. The PEOPLE, not the rich, built the roads. The people own them – all the people, not just the rich. The rich did not physically build the roads; the rich do absolutely none of the work of maintaining them. Why should the poor and middle class lift so much as a finger to repair roads they are not allowed to use?
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What next? Charge people to use the sidewalks? To breathe the air? To cross the street? How about charging people to send their children to school? to receive textbooks? to take books out of the library? How about charging people for police rescues? Will you have the fire department send bills to people for putting out fires?
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Be clear on this: the Republicans want to charge the little guy for everything in order to cut the taxes on the rich, so that the rich can CHOOSE which things to pay for and which responsibilities to escape. You must not permit this destruction of the social compact. Roads not built as toll roads cannot be stolen from the people who built them and turned over to the rich. City workers who repair the streets must be prepared to refuse to repair any road stolen from the people, and citizens' groups must sue the City, State, and indeed the Federal Government as well if you permit the theft of public property and transfer of invaluable and indispensable public roadways to the rich.
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Government is counting on passive acceptance of any abuse by the people of New York City and its suburbs. That might be a serious miscalculation, and if this crime against the people is passed, I would indeed favor violent revolt, from barricades across the streets to rocks thru windshields, tire slashings, and even physical assaults on the rich who steal from the poor. That includes assassination of public officials who think society belongs to the rich, and that the "riffraff" should be cleared from the streets THEY BUILT.

This must not pass! No elected official nowadays will do anything the people want. Government is ripping away everything the people own and reducing the poor and middle class to penury and slavery. Let "congestion pricing" be the straw that broke the camel's back. Fite it. Stop it. Prove that the people have power. But if the people cannot stop this, if the people consent to this, then the end of our civilization is at hand, and we might just as well formalize our surrender to the rich and take away the rite to vote from all but the rich. If the many cannot stop the few from rolling over them despite having the rite to vote, the loss of the vote won't make a damned bit of difference. It will just make absolutely clear what is becoming all too plain already: the rich own this country lock, stock, and barrel, and will do anything they want, to anyone they want, anytime they want, and there's nothing we can do about it.
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Or is there?
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Lest anyone think my remarks above incendiary, let me offer two quotes from another incendiary, one Thomas Jefferson:

What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

and

What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?

Bloomberg, Spitzer, Bruno, and Silver should consider themselves warned.
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 3,628 — for Israel.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 5:27 PM