Ignorance is blitz

By Johnny D. Symon

The Spanish TV company, TV 1, made history last Tuesday night through broadcasting a live show entitled "Tengo una pregunta para usted" ... "I have a question for you" ... It would appear to be the first show of it's kind not only in Spain, but also in the rest of Europe; a live people's congress/parliament. One hundred individuals chosen from a cross-section of the Spanish public. Each one had a question or two to ask Spain's default president, Zapatero. He eventually wasted enough talk time over that two hours to avoid having to answer the complete one hundred; he answered forty two. The questions, by the way, were unedited and unknown by everyone except the giver, which made the whole event heaps of fun. Nevertheless I doubt if the forty two who asked the questions believed that they were answered correctly, or even honestly. The truth is, they were answered in a most evasive fashion, and proves without a shadow of a doubt that Spain's regional elections in two months time will find many of Zappo's helpmeets out of a job.

I'll enter into the grim details of last Tuesday night's historic event a little later on down the page, but first I want to discuss something I believe to be related to Tuesday night's gas-bag event. It's entitled "What exactly is this all about?"

That question is something all rational human beings were born with. As we enter into the world, pretty soon our grey matter conjures up this magical and multilingual question. Even as newborn kids, who still have a lot of life to live and breathe before learning to speak, we already know how to perform this question. It's a neat little tool and most effective, result-wise, when you're newborn or very young because the world of a little kid is narrow and restricted, under the care and protection of mom and dad. Therefore this little universal question does not have far to go in order to return results. But as we get older our world expands with us and the efficacy of our lifelong question tool becomes a little uncertain. We find that it has to be used more often in a day than when we were younger, and ofttimes the answer it returns takes a little longer to arrive. Therefore when we reach adulthood our magic tool's burning white hot.

All kids are inquisitive, however they're also unique. Even identical twins have something a little different from each other. So as their little world grows and they begin to grow into it, pretty soon they learn that all human beings are different. Some uniquely special, and others uniquely less than special ... avoidable even. You see the fact is, we all have the hunter-gatherer instinct. We venture out to search for that little something to fill our stomachs, our hearts, and our minds.

Lord Acton once said, "Nations have neither permanent friends nor permanent enemies, but only permanent interests." So as with nations, so goes the individual nature of each distinct hunter-gatherer.

During the first and second world wars the people of the United States viewed Germany as an aggressive hoard of people hell-bent on taking over the world through force. But the great nation of Germany was placed on an aggressive war footing by first the Kaiserdom and politicians, then by a lousy postcard artist and his political movement of "National Socialism."

Toward the end of the first world war most domestic Germans were out on the streets demanding an end to their country's self-destructive crusade. When Germany finally surrendered, our own politicians let us down through providing only a temporary peace agreement. Temporary, that is, because we treated them with kid gloves. A couple of months short of twenty years on saw yet another full-blown world war.

Each nation that joined one or the other side viewed it's enemy as "all the peoples" of that nation, they never regarded the nation's leaders as those most to blame for the problem. Adolf Hitler and his cabinet were the real problem behind the second world war, and Kaiser Wilhelm the Second, who happened to be Queen Victoria of England's little grandson, played a major part in the first one. On both occasions the common people of Germany were simply tools in the game, though due to unfinished business first time round, together with a cowardly and misplaced trust involving something written on a piece of paper Neville Chamberlain (then Prime Minister of Great Britain) received and believed, ww2 began in earnest as some Germans figured toward the sequel that some old score settling was in order.

We viewed all Germans during the first world war as the Hun and krauts, though generally during the second just the Hun ... mindless destroyers. Miraculously we now can look a long ways back in time at the close of ww2 and view Germany and it's people as close friends and allies, but the German people are basically the same now as they were in the past. What made the difference between Germany of two world wars and Germany in peace time was simply the removal of their lousy leaders.

Angela Merkel, now Germany's Chancellor, will never become a second Hitler or Kaiser. Both were of their time and of their own personal destinies, which brings me back to that universal and multilingual tool all of us use on a regular basis, "What exactly is this all about?" Well, in Kaiser's time the German people could not glean enough peripheral evidence to satisfy that question, in fact due to a lack of trustworthy news sources, most times the picture forming in their minds of the world outside of Germany's borders was pretty much incorrect. And the big picture afforded the German people by the Third Reich also lacked truth and veracity. Whereas nowadays our access to information on any domestic or international situation is vast and varied. And the reception of vast and varied information by an individual will be sorted through, then a judgement will form that might well be world's apart from the judgement of another. This is where the "what exactly is this all about?" tool meets up with human frailty; we all fall short of the desire to exact a clinical judgement. Our reasoning powers inevitably intermingle with our personal leanings. There's nothing wrong with our information sources, our databases, that intelligence and sound judgement cannot correct, but when pure truth clashes with set personal views, all that remains within our own private grey matter is inner conflict.

To understand right from wrong taxes more of our truth receptors than if we just resign ourselves to the status quo. We most times figure it best to accept the lies from our leaders instead of standing up for what we believe is right. We become in effect a traitor to ourselves. We inflict harm on our own person and thus step down yet another rung of our morality ladder. But those who believe and act upon sound truth will inevitably rise, rung by rung, though each step requires the use of that lifelong tool ... "what exactly is this all about?" ... then when the answer arrives we must act in accordance with it's truth, irrespective of our own set views. We must desire to act on the truth and not sit on it! Which brings me back to the subject of last Tuesday night's Spanish TV show, "Tengo una pregunta para usted."

One hundred people, representing a cross section of the Spanish public, desired answers to their own personal questions. An historic "people's congress" took place with almost six million TV viewers sitting back to watch. For two hours the truth was laid bare, and a political leader's lies were stripped of their sugar coating. A young lady lawyer remarked that true equality in the workplace should really be about "who's best qualified" to hold down the job, not "businesses must employ 50% women!" And you know? this lady's pure reasoning is something that triggered my own knowledge concerning certain businesses I've had connections with, because if I'd had my way in the hiring/firing business back then, there would have been over 80% of the workforce women. Like this lady lawyer, I believe that the most qualified deserve the job, and women find it just that little bit harder to reach the top, even if they're better qualified than their male counterpart. So, for politicians to force industry to use sexual percentages will only lead to poorer product and productivity.

Another member of the people's congress asked Zappo what the price of a cup of coffee was "in the street" i.e. cafes and bars, to which he replied, "Eighty cents," (about a dollar,) this made the questioner a national hero over night. All TV channels in Spain joked about it throughout the following day, as did most of the general public, because a cup of coffee averages out at between 1,20–2,00 euros. The man's argument was that he had less spending power nowadays than he had four years ago under the Conservative government. Zappo told him that he was therefore an exception, and I know he isn't, because I personally know a mixed multitude of Spaniards who believe the same as our national hero.

A young student girl said that she had voted for him and his party last time round as did many of her fellow students because he promised more and better housing, and better work contracts on graduating. She said that they all felt betrayed and "basura" contracts were still in place. He replied to the girl's concerns by issuing the following, "I promised to remove our troops from Iraq should I be elected, and I kept my word!" he then went on to attack Blair and his government, and Aznar, for joining President G W Bush in an "illegal and immoral war." He never answered the girl's questions. This young student's vote confession was repeated by most of the forty two questioners and all of them were hostile to Zappo and his government.

Another thing they all held in common was their distaste at his treatment of terrorists and terrorism. They were against the release of De Juana Chaos who'd murdered twenty five people, and they were against what they believed to be his government's manipulation of the judiciary in respect of Arnaldo Otegi. As a head of the illegal political arm of ETA (Batasuna) he was facing a certain fifteen months behind bars, then suspiciously a Supreme Court judge dropped the allegations. The Audencia Nacional of Catalunia insisted afterwards that there was sufficient proof of wrong doing to charge the man.

The two short hours of a people's congress revealed the true nature of the Socialist government's version of democracy. When push came to shove those forty two people believed that "free choice" had been denied them. They felt lied to and they felt cheated, but above all they felt that the Spanish government could not be trusted in anything, which was quite an experience for me.

The next people's congress will have Conservative party leader, Mariano Rajoy, facing the music. I plan to watch the whole thing and use the big question tool throughout the duration of the show. I suspect that Mr Rajoy will elucidate more effectively in response to the questions asked, though it's quite common for those in opposition to feel more at ease telling the truth than those at the helm of a nation. And that's yet another indictment of the evils of that false religion, otherwise named "democracy."

People within democracy are only afforded the right every four years to place a tick in a box, and prior to the tick the average Joe will be treated by politicians as if they were the most important thing on earth. But once the tick goes down, the people are no longer important. It's four years of a personal political crusade. And it goes on, term by term. We'll all feel vitally important next time round, until we lay down that tick. This situation prolongs the cyclical agony of party politics, for individually and personally we have betrayed ourselves and our nation. Of course we'll ask ourselves "What exactly is this all about?" come the next electoral round, though inevitably we'll trash the real answer as it arrives deep within our grey matter. It's an age-old human failing that we've yet to war against with the desire to win. We propagate a vicious circle, then blame politicians and everything else for the result, when in truth we personally are to blame for the world's ills, all because we choose to step down a rung by lying to ourselves. We are in fact our own worst enemy and we form part of a process that the German people shared prior to and on through most of the two great wars.

But I believe we're worse than the people of Germany back then, because we have more information at our fingertips, and more history that we can reap from. We have less excuse to be ignorant. So if ignorance is bliss, we must be the happiest people in the universe. Right?

© Johnny D. Symon