This is a tainted entity. Corporations and special interests are slowly killing what we once called democracy. I just went toe-to-toe with this homonculus--yes, the one swollen from the venoms of the aformentioned groups--today, and things are still quite uncertain for me.

Seriously. If these people wanted to do something right for a change of pace, they would start listening to the common man. Tea party, Uber-left-wing, THIS MEANS NOTHING, by the way. This jargon is just a way we think our special interest is being spread across a diverse nation.

President, senators, governers, mayors, I beseech you to crane your heads, to strain your hearing, to back the common man.

Amtrak might as well serve for an allegory. It is "the" common carrier for passengers. People who ride it are hurt by gas prices or airfare. To cut this vital safety net out from under these people should be a sin in ANY religion, a taboo in ANY society, it should never be even FATHOMED.

By the way, even though I appear to be any of these parts, I'm not a foamer who wants to see more trains clatter through his neighborhood so he can dig at the railroad for neglecting to tune their horns. I'm not an engineer or conductor who is on his knees, begging for a job because he couldn't find one with the Class Is.

I don't even have a stake in the passenger industry to begin with, I ride it more for pleasure more often than I ride it for personal committments or for business.

I'm that person, waiting on the platform at three in the morning, waiting for a dilapidated, delayed train. I'm the rider watching freights whip past at full speed while we sit still on the siding. I'm that individual who looses half a week because they miss their connection.

Consider this a lesson--lay down your factions, look at what truly has tainted our nation, and empathize with those who are suffering from the greed that ails our nation.