Matisyahu's Blog

Getting back to work on Wednesday after having a harrowing couple of days of wind, rain, more wind and more rain. I’ve had a look on the Metlink website to see whether the trains have been delayed or cancelled due to damage to the track and/or overhead power lines. It appears that everything is working normally except some schedule maintenance that’ll occur at night meaning the late train service on the Hutt Valley line will be replaced with buses. I dislike taking the bus replacement but I have to come into the office at least twice a week so I may well get the 2 days out of the way on Wednesday and Thursday rather than trying to push it off until another day.

There is a lot of work being done when it comes to the railways and it is interesting to see how the different parties, both the opposition and those who make up the current government, are differentiating themselves after the “National Infrastructure Plan” was released today (link). It’ll be interesting to see what Labour Party infrastructure policy is particularly when you consider that NZ First, Greens and Labour agree on the need for more investment into rail where as the current National led government have been very much focused on building more roads rather than making the existing roads work a lot better (which funny enough the report said that the government should be focusing on – the majority of the money being spent on making existing infrastructure work better and the remaining funds being spent on new infrastructure).

One of the moves that the National led government have done which I agree with is the reforming of the Resource Management Act (link) – there is no use have the world’s greatest plans only to find that those plans are continuously undermined by NIMBYs using their noise making in an attempt to block or slow down anything and everything (the alternative version of NIMBY is known as BANANA which stands for ‘Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything’). I’m hoping that with the regulatory reform changes and improved delivery that we’ll finally get the infrastructure built at a reasonable price in a reasonable amount of time as to avoid the current situation where we spend a lot but get very little in return (see the cancelled ‘light rail’ project in Auckland whose price just kept going up).

What bores me are people who engage in politics not so that they can take an interest in developing policy then advocating for such policies but instead those who use politics as a vehicle to virtue signal – to morally posture about how they’re better than anyone not in their political party rather than doing something productive. It is something I see in US politics where liberals will claim to be progressive but then do the complete opposite – having a Black Lives Matter sign on their front yard and yet they’ll fight tooth and nail to oppose zoning law changes to allow affordable dense housing or change the way in which schools are funded as to ensure all children have access to the same quality of education. The New York Times not to long ago talked about this hypocrisy found in this video (link) and it is something that liberals in the US need to think long and hard about (I say liberals because left wing people already know about the problems and how to solve them).

One of the other major things that annoy me is when I hear US commentators talk about how so-and-so politician is a ‘policy wonk’ and my first reaction to that is “shouldn’t every politician be a policy wonk? if they’re not interested in policy then why are they even a politician in the first place?”. This is the reason why nothing gets done, because congress are filled with hangers on and oxygen thieves who aren’t there to do something productive but instead to use congress as a soap box to further their career and then after they retire then they get a show on Fox News or some other god forsaken right wing media outlet.

Coming back to the original question, why does it bore me? because it is completely and utterly unproductive and if I am going to be unproductive I might as well stay at home watching television because then at least I’m being authentic in my indifference rather than going through the motions to give the illusion of caring.

On a side issue, the other reason I can’t stand performative politics is the damage that it does to the democratic process. When ordinary people see that those involved in politics are involved for their own self interest then the legitimacy of the system is called into question. This is how a charlatan like Donald Trump is voted in because of politicians are not taking their job seriously so in the end large numbers of people throw their hands up in the air and take a chance with someone who markets themselves as an ‘outsider’ and promises to ‘shake things up’ and ‘drain the swamp’ (even though they’re very much part of and benefit from the establishment).