OZschwitz: Just like Auschwitz: Processing the corralled slaves via statist transport

It's hell down here, and the devil has a microphone

I heard him before I saw him - a young man with hands on his ears standing still amid the churning, lurching chaos that is platform one at Town Hall station. "Can you please just shut up. Christ. Just shut up."

It turned out I was not the only one being driven mad by the lecturing, hectoring voice on the platform speakers, the latest horror to confront commuters.

Town Hall at peak hour is a dirty, dangerously overcrowded, stifling hot environment that looks and feels like an accident waiting to happen. But now, in what is presumably an effort to give the impression that something is being done, the captive commuters squashed on the platforms are lectured on safety, crowding, and train-travel etiquette by some insufferable Big Brother.

"Can that man sitting on the steps please move," the invisible voice booms.

Then louder. "That man on the steps who is blocking the way. Please move."

Then, infuriated: "You, that man in the brown overcoat, there's no reason to block the steps. You are holding up people who want to use the stairs."

Finally, the tired commuter who has been held up to us all as the cause of our mutual subterranean unhappiness, realises he has been made the scapegoat. The woes of Town Hall station are all his fault. He slinks off to join the other miserable but upright commuters.

It does not stop there. "The all-stations train to Bankstown is now at Circular Quay … the train should be here in about two minutes. So just be patient," the voice booms. We know that. It says so on the board.

"Can passengers please stay behind the yellow line while the train approaches." I would gladly do so if a three-person deep crowd was not exploding behind me.

"Those people crowding the train doors - you are a danger to yourselves as well as to others." No, the real danger here is that nothing has been done to upgrade this station to cater for today's crowds. But on it goes. The voice is relentless, monotonous and narky.

"We all want to get home, and pushing and shoving won't make things happen more quickly."

We don't know what's good for us, is the message, and CityRail is going to make sure we understand. If there was any real concern about overcrowding at Town Hall station, built in 1916, then new exits would be created. It can take an eternity in peak hour just to get on the escalator from the bowels of the station. A fire down there would be … well, it's not worth thinking about.

LNK
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Aquarchy Rules. Liquidate the Reds

ANCAPS Forum, Ancapolis, Aqua-Terra Atlantis Division.

1984 and beyond...
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"Taking money without permission is stealing unless you work for the IRS then it's taxation. Killing people en masse is homicidal mania unless you work for the Army then it's National Defense. Spying on your neighbors is invasion of privacy unless you work for the FBI then it's National Security. Running a whorehouse makes you a pimp & poisoning people makes you a murderer unless you work for the CIA then it's counter intelligence." R. Wilson. ANCAPS Forum Headquarters, Ancapolis