JUST IN -- THE HUMANITARIAN AID CONVOY IS BACK INTO RUSSIA! SO THERE IS HOPE FOR USA PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION AFTER ALL!!!
In a cyberspace exchange with a savvy Facebook friend deeply familiar with the realities of Eastern Europe/former USSR, I could not help but suggest some days ago (ironically -- but how else to deal with a totally absurd situation regarding Russia-Ukraine?) that the convoy of Russian trucks carrying "humanitarian" aid to Ukraine be recycled -- once their mission is completed, assuming that their mission will indeed be "completed" -- to the United States as altruistic Russian assistance to enhance the sorry state of USA public transportation. ("It is alleged that GM and other car companies deliberately destroyed the public transportation systems within the cities to build the car culture. Here is the graveyard of trains they destroyed.")
For anyone vaguely familiar with the USSR and post-Soviet Russia, the evidently (supposedly?) Ukrainian-bound trucks (now evidently back to Mother Russia, but with God-knows-what military equipment they picked up in the process look remarkably clean and well-maintained. Their spic-and-span whiteness
stands out, especially when one considers how grey and scruffy Moscow, the Third Rome, capital of Mother Russia, can appear. In their mud-free purity (at least in photographs), these vehicles seem almost heavenly, angelic.
We -- even perhaps fanatically American car-driven individuals -- know our very own USA public transportation has, to use a fashionable word -- "issues." So, in a tough-minded, no-nonsense exchange for a lessening of sanctions against the Russian Federation, the State Department should demand from the RF Ministry of Foreign Affairs that, once the Ukraine-bound trucks are unloaded (or prevented from being unloaded; updated: they evidently were, but were brought back, reportedly, military items from Lughansk), they should be shipped, free of charge, to the United Stasi of America, in order to upgrade the USA's public transportation "system."
Would not the sight of these trucks be, on the streets of the land of the free, refreshing, encouraging, especially in its devastated urban areas, where access to public transportation is (to say the least) a challenge?
Think bankrupt Detroit, Michigan, former home of the USA "every 'Merikan should have a car" motor industry. In the putatively charitable spirit (shirokaya dusha) of the proposed Russian truck donation, without a doubt "separatist" Donetsk (once known as Stalino) and Detroit -- could it have been renamed Fordo? [See Brave New World] -- should be sister cities; the donated Russian vehicles would improve their ties, including even their brotherly ones. Meanwhile, cheap flights from Detroit to Donetsk are (were?), I should note, apparently available.
BTW, perhaps in an involuntary anticipation of this modest bring-the-Russian- trucks-to-help-the USA-Move proposal (BRTHUSAM; ice buckets available to support this initiative by the so-socially conscious USA 1%), someone photoshopped (?) the VOA (Voice of America) logo on a looking-oh-so-vanilla-ice-cream-clean-Ukraine-bound Russian truck.
The Russian trucks, once their Ukrainian operation is supposedly finished (terminated?) -- and, as I modestly propose, dispatched to the United States of America to assist us in surviving our public transportation crisis -- might need, as they say in USA real estate circles (about antiquated properties on the market), more than a little "upgrading" to make them acceptable/comfortable for demanding, endlessly irritable USA commuters. But everything is possible in America. No problem.
And of course enjoying the comfort of the upgraded Russian-made (?) commuter trucks ("Russia doesn't make anything," says President Barack Obama) could be aggressively marketed so that they are fully enjoyed by senior citizens, with the extra bonus of a transportation fee lower than for "young people." Special cards would be issued to the over-65 crowd with
an image of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (photoshopped, even without the comments?), appearing a bit like the younger Marlon Brando, as the generous (gorgeous?) artist as a young man (I won't dare say gay-looking) who simply loves America and just, just, from the bottom of his soul, wants to help the city upon a hill deal with its national agonies (sorry, I meant "issues").
Update image from; image below it from; USA public transportation image from; "whiteness" image from; convoy image from; VOA logo from; Putin image from
No comments:
Post a Comment