Post elections pundits everywhere make fascinating observations – even more so than the pre-election prediction experts. Like those wise camel riding wise-seekers looking for the ‘one’ that would bring hope and ending up more than six miles off course, many continue to be off-course.

Democracy currently hijacked by money, the rich and corporate elites, is only working for the very rich. That graffiti work of art if still there (travelling into Euston from Birmingham by train) seems to be the only alternative: “eat da rich”. If voting every four (4) or five (5) years is what democracy is all about, I would prefer to settle for something else. Lacking, is the sense of a collective common good, consensus politics, and bipartisan approach on the urgent issues facing us together. 

Is this why elections post-mortems tend to offer quick-fix evaluations, especially when their pre-elections predictions turned out to be wrong in the first instance. I am reminded of the ‘Silent Witness’ crime series where there is often a tension between what the forensic team sees from the evidence (from the dead and the crime scene) and that of the direction the police wish to quickly go down to nail perpetrator(s).  Most of the times the forensic team is correct, minding-mining the evidence.

Some post-elections pundits can be forensic in their observations (especially the failure of liberalism and the power surge of those rocketing towards the right). Moderates are currently like gold dust. Often, though, the political pundits miss identifying underlying root or systemic causes with their quick fix post-mortems. Whatever the political colour that triumphed in most recently held elections, the evidence is suggesting that much would not be changing for those who have placed their ‘ballot bet’ hoping to experience paradise on earth. The only one who would see their bets bring massive returns (sums would most likely not fit on the screen of your phone calculator space) are those who already have much more than they need. This small percentile of the population earns more than over 50% of national incomes, to be modest. The majority are left to hallucinate from chewing their marijuana leaves hoping to catch crumbs falling off the tables of the rich. The impoverished, despite trickle-down sweeteners, remain chained at Dives’ gate.

I have been re-reading Eduardo Galeano’s Upside Down: A Primer for the Looking-Glass World (1998). Galeano’s outrage and satire remain spot-on. I quote: “You don’t need to be a poli-sci major to realize that political speeches have to be read backwards for their real meaning. There are few exceptions to the rule”. Democracy may be compared to the underground: you must pay to open the gates!

An underlying and untouched ‘shitstemic’ root problem is the money and wealth of mind-boggling sums that have corrupted politics and democracy. Some would name it as runaway capitalism or even as ‘an invisible hand’. Of course, there is nothing ‘runaway’ or ‘invisible’ about where the wealth lodges itself and how it has hijacked democracy and its instruments. Currently democracy’s number one enemy is what capitalism has currently morphed into. Perhaps there is much merit in Fidel Castro’s observations years ago: “the capitalist system now doesn’t work either for the United States or the world, driving it from crisis to crisis, which are each time more serious”. I do not wish to contemplate the crises to come and how much more serious it would get. There is no need to follow the money. We already know where it is heading towards: the corporate world of billionaires. It is certainly not heading in the direction of ‘working’ people. As Galeano quoted from a wall graffiti: “He who works has no time to make money”. Or as that rebel teacher is purported to have said: ‘the poor will always be with us’.

©caribleaper November 18 2024