Auckland PT - I'm giving up...

That is, I'm giving up reading Auckland public transport related forums. The main reason is, I can't stand the endless negativity.

I'm not saying that there's nothing worth being angry, pissed off, or sad about. Indeed, we have a government in control who are brainwashed by the road lobby, endless delays in making the investments that would give us a truly world class PT system, and so many teething pains bedding in the current round of improvements.

But the attitude of PT supporters in Auckland is absolutely terrible. The forums are utterly filled with people who spend their whole time crying and complaining about everything that's wrong with Auckland PT - and thinking that this is good tactics. I've been told "we can't tolerate mediocrity" - in other words, we can never allow ourselves to be happy with anything because it takes pressure off people to be perfect. If they tried that attitude in a primary classroom they'd be fired, or told to go back to the 1950s. I've been told that "PT bigwigs appreciate our input on how things will get better". I'm sure they do. And I'm sure they also roll their eyes and grit their teeth every time another chorus of whining sparks up about OMG MY TRAIN WAS 10 MINUTES LATE I'M LEAVING PT FOREVER AND BUYING THREE SUV'S.

We are all responsible for what kind of energy we bring into the world; or, to use less mystical language, what memes we propagate in our interactions with others. If your goal is to make pro-PT activism in Auckland a cesspool of defeatism and negativity, ensuring that it will suck the energy out of activists rather than inspiring them, and put off sensible people who don't like to be miserable all the time from participating, then congratulations, you're wel on target.

What's worse is that the PT supporters have been sucked into the Labour Party's chosen mode of campaigning against the Government's plan for a single Auckland council (the "Super City"). Again, don't get me wrong - Rodney Hide's plans are patently anti-democratic. I support a democratic Super City, with a 40-member Assembly elected by proportional representation, and local boards with serious powers.

But Phil Twyford and his buddies in the Auckland Labour caucus are inundating the public airwaves with such relentless and over-the-top negativity - talking pretty much about how the Super City means the end of all democracy in favour of corporate rule. Two points about this:

1) this encourages the illusion that the existing state of Auckland governance is any kind of "democratic" at all. All that is really happening here is that the bloated, undemocratic bureaucrats, local bigwigs and philistines who run things in Pakuranga, Henderson and Takapuna are shitting themselves at being put out of office by the bloated, undemocratic bureaucrats, local bigwigs and philistines who run things in Queen St and Newmarket. Meet the new boss, not actually much worse than the old boss. Anyone who rants about "the end of local democracy" is required to show that the current system is democratic in any way, shape, manner or form.

2) Labour's campaign is utterly negative - in that they show absolutely no positive alternative for how a democratic united Auckland might operate. This is clever tactics politically speaking, since if you don't have your own goalposts the opposition can't score against you. But it means that the people who have bought into Labour's OMG DEMOCRACY IS DOOMED DOOMED I TELLS YA narrative end up endlessly recycling worse-case scenarios, perpetuating a meme that "this is the end" for everything worthwhile in Auckland. This renders them not only useless politically (except as Labour-aligned cannon fodder), but very unpleasant company.

So... sorry Josh, Chris, Jodi, Nick, Matt, Lucy, etc etc etc, I just can't handle it any more. You're doing the good work, but are you doing it at the expense of your own mental health? Could you do it in any way which didn't involve living in a cesspool of downers?

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The bike is still going pretty well, thanks for asking. I'm regularly riding from Grey Lynn to Blockhouse Bay for football practice, and the battery holds up fine. I'm going to have to replace the gear lever, but thankfully that won't take much.