Have we become idiots?
Look where we are: a society that destroys the planet it lives on, that lets people die at sea and others of hunger, and that extinguishes species that have taken millennia to develop. How did we got here? Who made the decisions?
Romans and Greeks already had a representative democracy like we have now, where they chose representatives to take decisions. It seems that we have made little progress on the issue of democracy and we continue to use the same system as when messages were sent on paper,taking days for a person on horseback to deliver them.
The word Politics comes from the Greek 'Politikos', with the root Polis meaning City, meaning that 'of citizenship', that which has to do with the life of the city. On the other hand, in ancient Greece, personal and private interests were called idiotikos, so over time, people who prioritized their personal interests over those of the city were called idiotikos or idiots.
I not only understand but share the political disaffection of the public. If we think about it, we could say that nowadays politics has become idiotic, because in the end, we have parties where politicians are professionals, pursue personal careers and increasingly defend private interests.
Now, right now, in a period of crisis, emergency and collapse, is when it is most necessary to make the right decisions, the wisest, from consensus and from participation.
People need to be engaged by making them part of politics, from below, from weekly assemblies, from making decisions between, with and for all.
Citizens must be able to participate in important decisions, not just in 1% of the budget in a process called participatory, competing for a few scraps. Are you telling me that we can only participate by voting every four years as the Romans and Greeks did?
The CUP stems from social movements that are working day by day, we are politicized people in the real sense of the word politics: of the people and for the people. Bertolt Brecht already said it almost a century ago, that "the worst illiterate is the political illiterate", because it is from politics that the decisions that affect us all are made.
This decision-making mechanism cannot be hijacked in the hands of a few whom we vote for every four years. We must mature this archaic and burdensome system of participation, politicize our society and make accessible to everyone the opportunity to face this crisis to which this lack of direction has brought us, this autopilot of capitalism that is guided only by economic profit .
The CUP comes from below, and we are there inside and outside to change everything, because we don't have planet B, because the longer we continue with the same system, the harder it will be to overcome this crisis. We need to put politics back in the hands of the citizens, because otherwise, from a society of idiots governed by idiots, I can assure you that collapse is assured. If you aim to put politics where it belongs and make a real change, see you on the 28th voting, and also in the streets.
Pere Vidal - increiblesostenible.org
Regidor de la CUP en el ayuntamiento de Valls.
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