Why not
Elections in US have come and gone. Today the people of the US have chosen to repair the damage done by Bush and his cronies.
I’ve threaded this subject quite a few times on my blog and I’m going to do it yet again, but this time not about the US elections (those are already done and done, all we can do now is light a candle so that the Constitutional Court won’t come to play). Instead, I’m going to pick on the Romanian parliamentary elections.
It’s quite funny that in a rather anti-democratic country such as Romania there was a step made towards uninominal elections (also known as the true democratic model). Of course, in a rather classic style, this system was made as complicated and as irrational as possible (understandable, Romania is a land of poets) in order to confuse the people (if you can’t beat them, confuse them! - this is a not so old romanian saying and if it’s not romanian, then it should be).
And now the campaign race is under way. Â Unfortunately.
I’m saying unfortunately for a very good reason and that is: the election campaigns around here are an insult to the citizen. Bland, idiotic slogans, the same clear-cut photos that we’ve seen each and every time before, the same dirty attacks, the same press manipulation and so on.
What disgusts me the most is the lack of original ideas, despite the large number of PR experts hired by various parties. The National Liberal Party (PNL) hired former Nixon and Bush advisors (leave aside the quality of the candidates themselves, the PR advisors worked miracles to build an image for them) and lo! the campaign posters, adds and infomercials look exactly the same as for any other party. They bring nother new, they have no thought, no nothing.
The messages put forth by these parties (all of them, before you ask) are not only recycled garbage but also hold no principles. The Democratic-Liberal Party (PD-L), who was keen on public health, now gives free lighters to bypassers on the street, clearly encouraging smoking. What’s up with that?
All the talk of corruption, war and economic problems have vanished and no wonder. No party holds even the slightest clear-cut plan to work on a solution and no party forwards original ideas. All they’re capable of saying is: “vote for us because the others are having sex in their office” (see the Birchall sex scandal - dammit, I don’t care she literally sucks, if she does it on a short break from building a plan to force grand corruption cases to be taken to court). I don’t care what “the others” do or don’t, if you want me to vote for you, show me what YOU DO!
Given all this, I decided not to vote. The current political class has no originality, no brain and it’s capable only of thinking in patterns, all of them saying “pick us because we’re less bad then the others”. We don’t need the lesser evil, we need the greater good. We need to recycle them but that’s near impossible since they’re so deeply entrenched.
Show me one ounce of change, once ounce of originality, once slight hope of a solution and I’ll take it. In the meantime, this image is the only appropriate poster for any Romanian election