Thinking in 2D in the 21st Century

It’s been a week on the island and as you can see from the lack of blogging it has been a busy one. Any time I may have away from planning is dedicated to the sun and sea (or the sun and swell during the last two days). The most “politics” I get during this time is a chance to hear people out away from the comments boxes in the various blogs and online papers and so I get to compare the ethereal with the reaHave I got some (non) news for you…

There’s a lament doing the rounds out there that is worthy of Pietro Caxaro’s darned best. It is sung by each and every person who you meet and who you da provoke into talking about current affairs. There may be variants but the highlights of the lament go something like this:

1. An extreme displeasure and disgust at anything PN. Apparently the monsters of “widespread corruption”, “nepotism” and “hofor” are back with a vengeance. The general idea among nationalist card carriers is that the PN might as well vanish in a cloud of smoke – as they have become a corrupt bunch of spendthrift nincompoops who are also hell bent on installing a police state. As one ex-nationalist (yes, they are back) gently put “it: “We do not need another five years of democratic dictatorship. Conclusion: PN does not get their vote. (Inzabbu)

2. So you try to get something out of these disgruntled nationalists about o they intend to vote for. The answer is obvious. They will vote for Inhobbkom Joseph and his merry band. Fair enough I say. After all fairness is oft invoked by the intelligent (that’s sarcasm by the way) voter to justify the need of alternation in government. But do you know what kind of policies PL has? Do you know how they will be applied to, for example, shield us from the dark clouds of the economic crisis? I am not a tough client. I ask for one (that’s 1) policy that promises to improve things from the lament-inducing state of affairs. Just one. Apparently though Joseph has promised an electoral manifesto three months before the election. And anyway that is not the point it seems. It seems that the point is that the vote is not really for PL but against PN. You see? Intelligent voting is back. Apparently the new think is “better the incompetent devil you have no clue about than the thieving, host-swallowing, conniving, power-nibbling devil you’ve had enough of”. Or summat like that. Conclusion: Viva l-lejber! (Who? boqq… basta mhux PN u hi).

3. And then you plug the innocent question. So if you are telling me that the nationalists have fooled you for too long and that you do have an inkling of a suspicion that PL running on the same polluted petrol why won’t you consider for an instance using your sacrosant right to vote positively and elect a party that deserves giving its damned best shot at having its policies represented in parliament? In other words : why not vote AD? (after reading their political proposals and seeing what they have to offer). Well we know what the answer to that on is don’t we? It’s Daphne and Patrick’s Wasted Vote… the one that makes you irresponsible for risking getting one of the other devils elected. Of course if Daphne convinced you not to waste your vote last election you probably voted for the government of one-seat majority in which Ad is not a king-maker. Hold on…. but what does that make JPO? What does it make obstinate Franco Debono? An unruly Austin Gatt? Let me guess… that is the most responsible vote of the highest order. Conclusion: Vote AD? Don’t be ridiculous. (Biex jitilghu xi PN bi zball… mhux hekk)

So three and a half years after the battles of 2008 when we tried desperately on the net and in the papers to convince people that the time had come to break the stronghold of the alternating valueless devils in this country by voting in a third party nothng much has changed. This is a country that still thinks in stupid terms. Yes, stupid. Becuase if you know that voting PN again would only encourage more of the same, and if you know that voting PL would only bring about the same, same but different and you are only voting PL because you want to spite PN then you can only be damn stupid. Very damn stupid if you ask me.

a J’accuse article in The Times of Malta from February 2008:

Win or lose we go shopping after the election

So there’s this campaign going on. It pits two candidates head to head against each other. The other contestants are sort of morphed away into the background as the two personalities fight the battle in each and every quarter. They pitch the battle from their home ground where they feel most confident attacking their opponent to the shrills and cries of banner waving supporters. Occasionally they will consent to a battle of wits before a general audience. It is such battles that bring out their fortes and their weaknesses. On the one hand the man who has already surprised everyone once by getting as far as he could get and on the other the smart confident lawyer with the plan to save the nation. They battle through the stereotypical labels, they justify past records and voting trends and they are both convinced that it is with them that the nation will start its new beginning.

It’s going to be a long, drawn out campaign as early polls had already indicated. No horse is a sure bet and every little battle waged is important for the achievement of the final result. They are determined to put on a good face to the crowd. They want to be the answer to the needs of the people. “Each candidate behaved well in the hope of being judged worthy of election”. It doesn’t take Machiavelli to notice that politicians will willingly change shape in order to best suit the image that the people want to elect. A recent article in The Boston Globe asked the question whether we should really be so angry that hypocrisy is a common trait among politicians. After all does it not mean that they are trying to be more pleasing for the electorate, the author asks.

On the other hand, in this campaign, the votes against are almost as important as the votes in favour. Often the old political adage, that men and women vote chiefly against somebody rather than for somebody, is proven right. More and more campaigns are run on why not to vote for the other candidate than why to vote for your own. It is a sorry state of affairs wherever this happens and reflects a dearth of positive ideas and policies. The same applies to the mud-slinging scenarios that have become habitual. This campaign has not been spared.

One candidate accuses the other of having supported a wrong policy in the past – the immediate repartee will be on how a policy backed by the accuser had been so ineffective and hopeless. And so on it goes. Was it not once said that during a campaign the air is full of speeches … and vice versa?

The media machinery focuses as much on the glamour aspect of the politician as it will on the substance being offered. Personal background, musical preferences and how the candidate spends his spare time all form part of the wider media circus of this campaign. Meanwhile, while one side will accuse the other of being incompetent, dishonest and incapable of fulfilling its promises, the other side will retort with the same arguments. To cap it all up the independents or third parties will agree with both – giving you quite an idea of how varied and contradicting opinions can weirdly fall in the same basket.

In the middle of it all lie the voters. They are awed by the language of the demagogues, by the special effects of the presentations and by the charisma of this or that candidate. They will watch in a drunken stupor as the more arguments are piled up the more they are mollified into one or another candidates’ camp. As the song and dance goes on they are led to believe that the choice is the only one before them that counts. Everything else is yesterday and the past. Tomorrow is another story where a new beginning and a new world exists… with your candidate of choice of course. Privately the voters’ main reflection remains that democracy is being able to vote for the candidate who you dislike the least.

But Barak Obama vs Hillary Clinton will be just another chapter in the history of viciously fought campaigns. I’ve just finished reading the book Imperium by Robert Harris which chronicles the life and times of Marcus Cicero. It chronicles events close to the end of the Republican era in Rome. Elections were order of the day between circus games and foreign campaigns. Bribery, corruption, calumnious accusation and all forms of no-holds-barred campaigning seem to have been normality in that age. Thankfully it is probably no longer possible to buy more than half the representation of the senate and the tribunes as attempted by Crassus and his co-conspirators.

Bribery and politicians who sell their soul to the highest bidder are a thing of the past even though many a Michael Moore will say otherwise. Politics are made for the good of the people. Wars are waged to export democracy and not to retain control on the oil lines, building permits are given in the light of regulations and not twisted in accordance to the needs of party backers and so on and so forth. Whatever the case the US seems set to have a woman or a black man in the White House (should the Democrats make it) over 200 years after the birth of a nation. The election will be over and we will return to our daily lives. As Imelda Marcos once famously said, win or lose, we go shopping after the election.