Yesterday’s New Jersey Transit train derailment at Penn Station, coupled with the Tea Party and Media manufactured debt crisis, finally has sent me over “the edge.” Of what edge do I speak you ask? The edge of the societal cliff where on one side you have secrecy, where you are keeping your head down and out of trouble, and the other where you are exposed, where you’ve stuck your neck out and where it might get cut off.
While I have always tried to have a say in both the way the world around me affects me and the issues that I care about and believe in, I have not taken as active of stance as I could have. I freely admit this and there are many reasons as to why this has happened but but mostly they have been driven by fear.
I have feared how what I say or do could be used against me in the future – the old law of unintended consequences as nothing is now unknown – technology chronicles all.
I have feared how what I say or do could negatively affect my current or future employment opportunities – what would have been unknown would instead be easily findable for those who want to put in the effort.
I have feared how hackers who disapprove of what I say or do could negatively affect the way I live (see the harassment that Anonymous have conducted against Wykcoff resident Parry Aftab, a well-known lawyer and television commentator who is considered an expert in Internet security who runs WiredSafety.org, for example) and the way that family lives.
Lastly, and understandably ranking highest on the paranoia scale, I have feared how various government alphabet agencies, such as the FBI, CIA and NSA, could use this information that I voluntarily give to develop a profile, case file and to track me. In the post 9/11 world we live in, people can disappear down a rabbit hole very quickly and I have been loathe to provide any information that could lead to me falling down one of these holes.
All of this fear negates the positives that could be gained and frankly considering I’m already worried about the grilling my children are going to give me about “what type of a world have I left for them?” I believe now is the time to act.
So, I vowed yesterday to stop living in fear and to move from simply being a critic and a point and click activist (i.e. donating money and/or signing petitions based on emails I’ve received) to more of an active activist.
My friend Brian, someone with which I email frequently about the political issues that we as individuals as well as a nation face, said a few weeks back that,
We do need to organize, become active and make our voices heard. Part of the problem is us. We are silent writing back and forth without making any change. We must become more active.
He now knows how much I took to heart his words. I took them as a call to action and acted. My first act was a simple one: I wrote my own letter, and not a form letter that some special interest group had prepared for me where all I needed to do is “virtually” sign my name to it, about the transit issues that New Jerseyites faced yesterday when a train derailment knocked out one of the two train tunnels that run under the Hudson River, and sent it to Governor Christie. The letter is posted below:
Dear Governor Christie,
Today there was yet another train derailment that occurred in New York’s Penn Station. Since I moved to New Jersey’s Bergen County last year, train derailments at Penn have been happening frequently – basically once a month.
These derailments negatively affect my family as both my wife and I commute into New York City in order to earn our living – we are consistently late to work and/or missing important meetings due to these transit issues.
This is not just our issue; this is an issue that affects the entire state of New Jersey. My family’s income, which is taxed by the State of New Jersey and which New Jersey relies on to fund its many different obligations, is generated in New York City. As these consistent commuting issues are affecting my career and my wife’s career, they are therefore by proxy affecting New Jersey’s tax revenue.
Reliable on-time access to New York City is vital to New Jersey’s bottom line and I therefore strongly suggest that you revisit and restart the ARC Tunnel project which you cancelled. Additional tunnels into and out of Penn Station will alleviate future derailment issues.
Here are two news articles which are related to today’s issues:
1. NJ Transit Derailment Snarls Train Service
2. Evening Delays Expected After Penn Station Train Snarls Morning Rush
Thank you very much for your time and attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
Jeff Lipson
I plan to write Governor Christie every single time there is a train issue in the future that the cancelled ARC project would have (eventually when it was completed in 2014) resolved.
However, this is just the start of things for me. I also plan to work on codifying a manifesto which might eventually lead to a platform for a new political party. Maybe I’ll even run for a major political office one day using the process that Americans Elect is starting or even better and probably more effective, I’ll effectively form a think tank like Grover Norquist. His “no tax” pledge is the driving force in pushing the Republican Party toward an ever-more rigid position of opposing any tax increase, of any kind, at any time which has completely altered the way the business of politics is conducted. Considering I want to do the same, which is to “completely alter the way the business of politics is conducted,” he is as good of a role model as any. I’ve put this little nugget at the end of the post as a reward for reading all the way through. Raise your hand and post a comment if you want to be intimately along for the ride.
I’ll close with a Teddy Roosevelt quote which another friend of mine (who is involved with politics but from the “inside” as a Democratic party) has as his email signature:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”
~ Teddy Roosevelt from his “Citizenship in a Republic” speech at the Sorbonne, Paris from April 23, 1910
): Scotch whiskey. I love single malts, double malts and blends.
