Mark Belling, Master Of Mean
Mark Belling says that people who ride the bus are "one of the fringe."
And that transit is "a cult;" building more is "moronic."
Let's see - - those cultish, moronic fringe folks would be people under 16, school children, people who don't own cars or who choose not to operate them, along with many senior citizens, and so forth.
In a city like Milwaukee, that's a large percentage of the population.
I guess Mark doesn't stand up for them.
7 comments:
I read that column this morning.
Stand aside. Very soon this fellow's head is going to explode.
Interesting that you do not call Belling ignorant or uninformed, because he knows what he is doing, doesn't he? He is playing on the prejudices and resentments of a certain targeted audience. So when someone suggests that we can probably do better than vending machines at the Downtown Intermodal Station, which he turns into a fifteen minute segment ridiculing the idea of fine dining at a bus station, he knows he is misrepresenting what has been proposed, doesn't he? And yet he claims the moral high ground?
(BTW, is he really anyone to call someone else a "misfit?" You only have to listen to him for five minutes to know that he is something of an oddball.)
Also, we could list some of the famous "misfits" who did not drive a car. Albert Einstein, for example.
Belling roils people up because it boosts ratings at the station, and that puts money in his pocket.
The sad thing is, though, that he appears to really believe some of the ridiculous things he says, things that bear no resemblance to reality. For example, his claim that liberals want people to be dependent on the government. Or that liberals want middle-class entitlements because that means more government jobs for liberals. So not only is he childish and mean, he really does seem to be delusional.
I fault local businesses for continuing to sponsor loudmouth hate speech. And I fault local politicians and opinionmakers for allowing themselves to be intimidated by these radio thugs. Enough already of these extremist, right-wing, talk clones!
I do have to comment on one odd statement from Belling's June 18 column ("Forget mass transit"):
If the transportation nightmare caused by the flood-related closing of Interstate 94 proves anything it is that car and truck transportation is a region's economic and social lifeline.
Does he not know how much freight is carried on rails, not just in our state but throughout the country? Does he not know that rail lines were also washed out by the flooding? (What might that "prove?") Or that passenger rail routes were cancelled? That buses were employed as a substitute for AMTRAK trains?
In short, the flooding of I-94 proves nothing -- except that the more transportation options we have, the better off we are. Whether Belling wants to admit it or not, rail is an important component of the economic and social lifelines of a number of regions of this country.
"fringe" must be his favorite misused word. when he discussed a muslim nba player who did not stand for the national anthem, he referred to "islam, judaism and other fringe groups."
Democrats typically like a dependent government rather than republicans who beleive that the government is not entitled to support everybody. We all pay taxes in this country and it's being wasted on people who are unemployed and too lazy to find a job themselves. Democrats think it's okay for people who are unemployed to live off the government. Taxes of citizens who work hard to support their OWN family, are being put toward lazy slackers. Now, where does this tell you our economy is going???
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