Trolololó. Loló.
Recently, in our bipolar Spain, we have gone to the polls to decide who will be the next to occupy their throne in power, specifically in the city councils and autonomous communities. After the skewed results, where the majority seems to be fed up with the management of the last years, the current government has announced the celebration of early general elections, leaving us all between astonished and not caring at all (what really worries us is that we will be on vacation… let’s not fool ourselves).
At this moment the “Clown League” begins. A spectacle of spotlights, microphones, slogans and promises, as well as a few chutes, balls to children’s heads, offsides and boos to some faggot referee, which will conclude with the public defenestration of the loser and his hunchbacked henchmen, and the burning alive of his voters in the square of each town, as well as the proclamation of the Magnus President of the Government 2023-2027, who as a Miss will greet and talk about Confucius and Venezuela from his balcony.
This spectacle has already got us, many of us, unhinged, and has become an old-fashioned tradition that we no longer trust.
Representative democracy, on which the functioning of this country kingdom is supposed to be based (look at your ID card, it says kingdom, you do not live in a country/state), consists of electing representatives who defend the interests of the citizens in the institutions. Where do these representatives get the set of interests and needs of their citizens? Do they carry out a survey? A field research? Do they watch the news on La Sexta? Well, maybe… but I am afraid that many of the needs that our politicians try to satisfy and solve are those that also concern us all. That is, they are their own. Worrying.
And I am not referring to the comfort of the office, of a job in a seat, in an office. To have a car, a house, a salary and attention for life.
I am referring to the fact that it is the personal experience of our politicians, depending on where they have grown up, where they have studied, their economic level, the political and moral ideology of their family, and the circumstances of their environment, which defines the objectives, views and sensibilities of each one of them, and of the party of which they will form part.
Here the jacket begins to fray. We are no longer talking about just a representative, we are talking about a person, subjective and with will, like everyone else. This, which may seem obvious to all of us, hides some trick that perhaps we are not seeing at first glance.
First of all, are these people really qualified to represent anyone? Perhaps they represent those who want to be like them, but not others. So far, our politicians are not asked for any psychological report, nor a study of intellectual, emotional, empathy, specific skills of a representative position…. They are only asked to smell good, to be well-groomed, and to speak with a lot of charm. If they have a catchy slogan, all the better. And if they can be seen with their grandparents in the park or with their family at a charity event, there is no doubt that they are the right people to decide what is going to happen to the lives of the people of an entire country for the next four years. If all else fails, they can say “You more,” and they win the fight.
And that is what party democracy is all about, giving the power to decide to a group of people who have their own ideas, some of them private, and who among themselves are forced to think and decide from the same breadbasket, so that they can impose them in order to maintain their way of life. It seems that their intention is not to represent, but to be right. To align their way of thinking with that of the majority of voters, and to convince those who do not think the same way that they are wrong.
Politics is very simple, it is divided in two:
- Those who are fine and want to stay that way, and think that if nothing changes, everything will stay the same (makes sense, doesn’t it?) These are the ones we call conservatives.
- And those who are not fine and want to be it, and for that they need things to change (not them, things). Let’s call them progressives.
Depending on what family you were born into, you will be one thing or another, unless you hit the lottery or find a way for others to give you their money. Remember that you don’t get rich by working, you get rich by thinking, and there are people with very bad ideas.
On this basis, it seems normal that in the end democracy is typically organized in two camps, which generates pitched battles to be right and to maintain one’s position. In addition, this system has several known problems, or minor flaws, such as:
Bipartisanship, or the tendency for only two organized gangs to alternate in power. This reduces voter choice and favors clientelism and corruption. In addition, the fact that there are mainly two parties in dispute continuously divides people into two opposing sides, something typical Spanish, turning Spaniards, accustomed to battle even at leisure, into real fans of two rival soccer teams.
Another problem is the disproportionality between votes and seats. Minorities are left out and new political formations are disadvantaged, as they have less chance of accessing parliament. This also generates inequality among voters, since some have more weight than others depending on the territory where they live. This is quite suspicious.
And to put just one more point, it also turns out that the representatives are only accountable to the voters every four years (or never, really), and during that time they can do whatever they want without consulting them. People have no mechanisms to recall politicians who fail to keep their promises or to propose initiatives.
Thus, politics becomes a media spectacle, where what matters is charisma, marketing and polls.
We do not vote for ideas or programs, we vote for a person: “I am going to vote for Rajoy”, “I like the Galician”, “I can’t stand Perro Sanchez anymore”, “El Coletas is going to sink the ship”, “this did not happen with Paquito”…. And we give our life, our time and our money to that person’s decisions. What is going to happen to us during our lifetime, our total existence, is largely based on the decisions of the government of the country in which we live. If tomorrow it is decided that we all go to war, we all go to war; if they take away half of our money, we give it to them; if alcohol is banned? we all go to France.
Isn’t this medieval?
Just as Real Madrid fans flock to a match, dressed in the same way, with their badges, their chants, their war paint on their faces… configuring themselves as a single, cohesive entity, with a goal so clear that no one can doubt or take a step back, so, we go to the polls, and to the whole of life, with our flags, our pride in being and thinking as we do, our intolerance of others, and our desire that everyone be like us and share our success. We are not going to vote, we are going to win. That’s the problem. This is not a competition of groups, this is not “socca”,
We are gambling on conditioning our whole life, which is the only thing we are going to have, and we do not realize that we are leaving everything in the hands of anyone, so that he can do what he wants with us, simply because he has convinced us that we are right, and he will maintain and assert that same reason before the others. Politics is a battle of egos, a game played by two or more buffoons who charge us admission, and at the exit, some ultras will beat themselves up and sleep warm but happy.
Some wear Spanish bracelets, others do not shave their hair and only buy bio, others will wish for the return of barbarian forms of government that we enjoyed in this country not long ago, such as the various republics or the dictatorship, without realizing that everything in the past did not work, they all did it wrong, and we should do something new according to the needs of everyone TODAY, instead of trying to be right with genocidal formulas of the PAST.
I do not want my life to be based on the rules of an outdated system. I do not believe in communism, nor in socialism, Marxism, fascism, capitalism, nor in anarchy, republic, monarchy, party democracy… no conservatism, liberalism, nor nationalism. I do not believe that anything that has not worked before will work today, at least it did not work for the majority, but only for a few. And I think we are now ready to realize this. To look at our buffoons and send them home.
If only politics were simply a craft of anonymous people. A set of connected bodies, fully transparent and at every step and action publicly documented, from where mainly people are taught to think, to detect problems and propose solutions, to participate in making them and to help ensure their maintenance. If only these politicians were only civil servants, in charge of compiling and creating reports of needs, with committees of experts in each subject represented by scientists, outstanding people from the world of culture, sports, economy, industry, ecology…. and every Sunday, instead of going to mass (well I don’t think that is done anymore), or instead of going to soccer, we would go to listen to a lecture on the future of medicine, on the public health system of the state (of the kingdom), on the education of children, we would go to debate, to make a group decision, and to vote, and we would vote for ideas, decisions, measures… instead of giving our votes to a person who, possibly, fails all the penalties but comes out with very white teeth in the photo.
For the time being, we will have to be satisfied with not being killed in the streets for wearing high heels (whether size 36 or 46), with the pots on the balcony to put an end to climate change, and hope that, whatever happens, El Madrid wins.
Bran Sólo. Jun-2023