Saturday, April 19, 2008

VBTA Supporters Show Their Facist Stripes

There was a recent poll on here "Is VBTA/TLP/CACI a democratic political movement?" There was an unanimous "No" vote.

It looks like you may have had it right. Just over an hour ago the HR Transit Ideas blog was hit with a pro-VBTA cyberattack. The anonymous poster made some false statements concerning blogger Michael Ragsdale, demanded that Michael "respect the VBTA", and pull his blog down.

Anyone who knows Michael knows he is a good kid with a vast knowledge and interest in mass transit. He simply wants to be a transit policy wonk, trying to avoid the associated politics. When the Cedar Grove changes were to take effect, with his own time and money he went out and posted notices on bus shelters that HRT had missed to alert riders to what was about to happen.

I would call on the VBTA leadership to denounce such behavior, but I won't waste my time. Anyone who remembers the 1999 light rail referendum campaign knows that CACI tried to get pro-LRT posters removed from, and pro-LRT posts suppressed on, Talknet. With light rail back on the front burner, it doesn't surprise me to see such behavior again.

18 comments:

Michael Ragsdale said...

Thanks. You're right: I don't really care about the politics, I just want bus and rail service increased

Michael Ragsdale said...

With that in mind, you might as well consider my transit interests to be more of an "operations" end of things as well as being able to expand services reasonably.

Anonymous said...

We most certainly ARE a democratic political movement.

Michael: last chance, TAKE YOUR BLOG DOWN NOW

Avenging Archangel said...

You are a democratic political movement...but nobody can have a blog that you object to the policy message of?

Yeah, that's very democratic of you - NOT!

Anonymous said...

RE: Anon April 20 11:12 AM

OOOOH...I am sure you have Michael quaking in his boots.

What are you going to do if he doesn't take it down? Boycott his site? I'm sure if all 10 of the VBTA members stopped reading his site, his traffic numbers would dramatically decrease.

Michael, remember, these are a physically and politically harmless group of people.

You gotta love the guys who get up at public meetings (Moss, Krause, McMullen, etc.) and somehow think that their years as federal bureauocrats or military officers makes them experts in private enterprise.

KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!

Anonymous said...

BTW, does CACI even exist anymore?

Anonymous said...

Keep it up. Don't let Reid and his cronies scare you.

Michael Ragsdale said...

Thanks everyone. Thanks for your support. I look forward to a "brainwashing" session come Thursday to discuss The MAX.

Michael Ragsdale said...

The funniest thing about this whole saga is that I never envisioned Ideas for HRT to be a political blog. The original meaning of the blog was ideas to improve service in the form of schedule time tables for blog entries. It then evolved into covering HRT news in addition to ideas to improve HRT services. I never really cared about the politics of it.

Anonymous said...

As Michael's wife seems to like to use the term "stuff it", I say HRT can stuff it too

Anonymous said...

Uh, excuse me!? Just who the (blank) do you think you are?


Michael: don't let this jerk keep you down. I look forward to riding The Tide as well as catching buses at night and Sundays.

Avenging Archangel said...

Anon 12:28,

CACI is still around, but on life support. About a half-dozen regulars left.

Michael Ragsdale said...

And would you believe this jerk is attacking Tidewater Musings now?

Anonymous said...

Now this guy is telling Peter to "stay out of it." I'm calling him a coward.

Anonymous said...

Huh?

"Jessica B. said...

Keep it up. Don't let Reid and his cronies scare you.

Me? I'm not into scaring anyone.

As for "facist strips" - well, that simply is false, but considering Henry's obsession with the VBTA and myself, it comes as no surprise.

Jessica, what possible proof do you have that I have anything to do with whomever is demanding that Michael's blog being taken down?

None.

Becuase until I happened upon this today i knew nothing about these discussions lately.

-Reid Greenmun

Avenging Archangel said...

So, Reid, demanding that a blog be taken down simply because of it's policy content and demanding loyalty to a political group isn't facist in scope?

If it was an Oceanfront group or a regionalist business group acting that way, you'd be first in line screaming.

Anonymous said...

To the troll: For the record, I am not related to Michael in any way. I've never even met him before

Anonymous said...

Jessica,

You have not answered my question.

I will ask you again:

Q: what possible proof do you have that I have anything to do with whomever is demanding that Michael's blog being taken down?

-Reid Greenmun
VBTA Transportation Chairman