Today’s train robbers don’t need masks or guns, for they are railroad executives wearing $3,000 suits and robbing us by railroading the political system.
With their gangs of lobbyists and hopper cars of campaign cash, they get Congress to do their dirty work, gutting public safety protections and muting railway unions. Thus, rich investors get richer, while regular people are hit by an astonishing level of derailments, injuries, destruction… and death. Witness the horrific wreck of Norfolk Southern’s nearly two-mile long toxic freight train this year in East Palestine, Ohio.
This was a product of the industry’s prevailing ethic of profit over public safety, and the American people were outraged by the greed, demanding fundamental reform. US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg weighed in, correctly noting that calls to protect the public have too often “given way to industry pushback and inaction. That must not happen this time,” he emphatically declared.
You go, Pete! But it is happening.
A key reform he pushed was to allow rail employees to report safety dangers without fear of retribution from the corporate hierarchy. Such a “close call” reporting program has existed for years – but participation was voluntary. Hello – out of some 800 American railroad corporations, just 27 chose to volunteer, and all of the Big Eight freight giants (including Norfolk Southern) refused to join.
In the media glare of the East Palestine catastrophe, however, nearly all pledged to support the employee reporting reform. But that was then. Today, the media focus on East Palestine is gone, and the railroad lobbyists and their hopper cars of corporate cash have rolled back into Washington, watering down Buttigieg’s safety agreement to nothing.
And that’s why America’s train system won’t run right until we fix the crooked political money system that derails progress.
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Jesse James Now Wears Guccis