Democratize Me!

“There is one safeguard known generally to the wise, which is an advantage and security to all, but especially to democracies as against despots. What is it? Distrust.” –Demosthenes

by Adela Lawson and Joe Littenberg

IRON FISTING

How do you get your news?
Your answer matters not.

It makes no difference whether you’re the type who buys La Vanguardia or El Periódico or whether you surf online to see the news. It doesn’t matter if you sit down each night to watch las noticias and it doesn’t matter if you watch them in català or castellano. Even if you are the poor, tunnel-bound type who gets his news fix from the limp pages of 20 Minutos, ADN or Metro, it still, aún, todavía makes no difference. No matter where you get your news, in the last two months you have seen, heard about, or read several articles about the elecciones estadounidenses.

The media attention is astounding given that these are the primaries. During these months of hubbub over American politics, the actual, for-real, final-showdown elecciones generales de España have been right around the corner. Arguably, US politics and the US economy affect the rest of the world, but why, then, has hardly any mention been made of the Republicans, as though the election were a contest between Obama and Clinton? Wouldn’t it be more apropos to analyze the platform of McCain, the other likely presidential candidate? Or any platform, really?

Election coverage isn’t about issues, either here or in the States, because mass media formats don’t demand it or allow for it. They serve us the troop movements of the “viable” candidates with all the grace and nuance of an iron-fisted prison cafeteria worker doling out grey mashed potatoes. Growing malaise and apathy towards politics doesn’t stem from people’s disengagement from society. It reflects their distrust of the surreal leadership vacuum born of the filthy copulation between the old despots (politicians) and the new ones (corporate media).

In Spain, on 25 Feburary, we watched the first televised debate between candidates since 1993. 13 million people tuned in to see what Zapatero and Rajoy had to say. I could tell you that this made it the fifth most watched program since they started measuring TV audiences in Spain. I could tell you that most polls declared Zapatero the winner by a margin of between 6 and 15 points. But anyone who watched the face-off would tell you that these statistics are largely meaningless given that there was nothing to win. Not only did the candidates lose an opportunity, once again, to state concrete plans for the future, but they also executed their vapid exhumation of past wrongs before 26 million eyes whose owners had probably already decided for whom they were going to vote. And any undecideds certainly weren’t going to make up their minds based on the candidates’ kindergarten-art-project visual aides, or the moderator’s profound commentary: “Señor Rajoy ha cumplido perfectamente — ¡perfectamente! — con los tres minutos asignados.”

Indeed, Spain might have lost something far more important: the perception that the country still has a multiple-party system. With the deliberate exclusion of Llamazares, for instance, the media preempted the public’s choice, telling it that these were its candidates. Not only was this aggressively undemocratic, but it also liquidated the possibility that the debate could bring something other than bipartisan bickering to a national audience. This whitewashing of choice isn’t limited to Spain’s physical boundaries, either. In some Latin American countries like Argentina, where there are close to 260,000 people with the right to vote in the Spanish elections, our correspondent, Raquel Ruiz Diego, has been observing the rabid electoral campaigning.

I'LL BE WATCHING YOU

Muchas personas ven España como el lugar donde mejorarán su vida y su situación actual. En algunos casos será cierto, en otros no.

by Raquel Ruiz

Buenos Aires. 27 de febrero.

Zapatero is everywhere, mirándote, mirándome.

Crucé por segunda vez el Atlántico con la intención de encontrar un choque cultural tremendo y lo primero que vi fue un cartel que decía: “PSOE, la mirada positiva”, en un poste publicitario en el camino entre el aeropuerto y el lugar donde me hospedaba, Villa Insuperable.

Al principio fue bastante decepcionante, pero no habría sido tan extraño si me hubiera detenido a pensar en la amistad que tiene Cristina Kichner con nuestro presidente. Y en los 260 mil españoles que residen en la Argentina.

Llevo aquí más de un mes. En este tiempo me ha tocado escuchar la historia de muchas personas que ven España como el lugar donde mejorarán su vida y su situación actual. En algunos casos será cierto, en otros no.

Zapatero tiene buenas propuestas, ahora sólo hace falta que las cumpla si gana y que no se quede en una campaña electoral inmensa. Porque si no fuera por las veredas rotas y los baches centenarios en las carreteras, pensaría que estoy en España. Y es que te puedes encontrar con un “Vota Zapatero” pintado por cualquier pared, escrito en los carteles, folletos...

Pese al despliegue que está haciendo el PSOE a lo largo de todo el país, muchos no tienen ni idea de cuál es la propuesta del partido. Rajoy aparece tímidamente por algunos lugares y aun así muchos piensan que Aznar aún lidera la oposición. Parece que el PP no ha invertido tanto. Los otros partidos, nada. De todas formas, el que quiere informarse, puede; un ejemplo es que el debate fue transmitido al completo por el canal América 24.

Todas estas propuestas contribuirían a mejorar la situación de los argentinos/españoles. Pero ya no sólo depende de Zapatero, sino de lo que pase en las elecciones del próximo 9 de marzo.

¿Quién ganará? I'm scared...

DEMOCRATIZE ME!

by Adela Lawson and Joe Littenberg

In 2004, right before the US elections, I was doing some research in Barcelona for a documentary about globalization, and many Europeans I interviewed thought they should have the right to vote in the US elections because the results affect the entire world. A seed was sown, a question was born, and you know we love any excuse to talk to shoppers on Portal de l’Àngel. So we hit the calle last Saturday with the following pregunta: “Si tuviera derecho de votar en los EEUU y España y tuviera que elegir una sola nación donde votar, ¿donde votaría?” The question pulled 197 people to our pathetic little voting booth (which any independent observer would have deemed to be in violation of multiple international standards). Of these, 106 also took time to fill out our 12-question encuesta. Then, we sat down to count up the results and find our answers! But we ended up with more questions. Even more questions, damn it! It was the least conclusive encuesta in the history of mankind, and you can see the results below, but some of the answers made us laugh and/or cry, and we thought we’d engage in a little dissection.

¡TOMA, NAYSAYERS!
First, and perhaps most importantly, when asked, “¿Le importa la política?” 67 of our respondees said si. We commend them. Despite the fact that today’s political climate has about as much appeal as a bundt cake made of vomit, people still care enough to pinch their noses and swallow. To the 25 that said no, we thank you for aguantarnos and for taking the time to take the encuesta even though you care not for the política. Please vote, even if it’s en blanco. To the lone voter who put the “X” in between si and no, we wish you more decisive days.

MAYBE GLOBALIZATION AIN’T SO GLOBAL AFTER ALL.
Even though our original voting question was inspired by things I heard in Barcelona, 141 of the 197 people who voted chose to vote in the Spanish election. Maybe they did so because they felt like one Norwegian tourist who told us he was going to vote in the Spanish election because he didn’t want to have anything to do with the United States. Or maybe our questionable language skills didn’t allow us to communicate the gist of the query properly. Several Spaniards seemed disinclined to vote because they were worried it was going to affect their ability to vote on the 9th. Or maybe it had to do with question number four...

¿QUÉ POLÍTICOS LE INSPIRAN MÁS CONFIANZA: LOS ESPAŃOLES O LOS ESTADOUNIDENSES?
A good one. Many people burst out laughing when they read it. Others panicked mildly and left it for later. And some asked the following simple question: can I write in something else? As you’ll see in the encuesta, we only offered two possible answers in the questionnaire. A significant número of people were not content with our options, and, once we gave them permission, wrote in “ninguno.” Well done. But the “ningunos” were not the majority. Had we included “ninguno” as an option, the results might have been very different, but as it stood, the majority of people (62 out of 106) felt that Spanish politicians inspire more trust than American politicians. Only 11 people felt the opposite. Is this distrust of American politicians a direct result of recent American actions in the international sphere? It seems obvious, you might say, that Spanish citizens find their own politicians more trustworthy than American ones, but isn’t it telling that every single foreign resident also chose to put his faith in Spanish politicians before americanitos?

A LOS ESTIMADOS CANDIDATOS, SR. RAJOY Y SR. ZAPATERO, LES DESEAMOS...
...more real competition. 96 out of 106 people said that a two party system similar to the one in place in the United States would NOT be a positive change in Spain. But doesn’t it seem a lot like a two party faceoff for president right now? We read something about IU proposing un debate virtual through the virtual web world Second Life that would include ZP, Rajoy and the IU candidate Gaspar Llamazares, but vaya. Just because a lot of grown men are on Second Life pretending to be teenage Czech masseuses doesn’t mean the Internet closet is going to open anytime soon.

But given the answer to this question about the two-party system, why was the voting almost even in question five, where we asked if people would prefer to be governed by the most-voted-for party rather than the coalition with the majority of votes? 52 people (Spanish, Catalan and foreign residents) chose the first option. It was close, however, and 43 people opted for coalitions. It’s interesting that only among the Catalans did more people choose coalitions over the most-voted-for party (10 for coalitions versus 9 for most-voted-for party). But still, why did 9 Catalans choose the latter? Catalan parties, after all, held the 3rd and 4th place spots in the 2004 national election. If this election is really close, CiU or Esquerra might play a huge role. If we had asked more people, would this statistic have been different?

A RABBI, A PRIEST, A TALKING DUCK AND A BLONDE WALK INTO A BAR...
The year? 2012. ZP and Rajoy are things of the past. They’re abuelitos on park benches. The faceoff now? One white woman versus one black man. The arena? Spain. That’s right, take the current primaries in the USA and put it in the Spanish context. Who would win? The most common response (79 votes in total) across all groups (Spanish, Catalan and foreign residents) was the white woman. 13 people believed that the black man would ganar. Does this mean Spaniards are racist? Or that they think all other Spaniards are racist? After all, only a few took it upon themselves to write in “el mejor” or something similar.

Yet, oddly, other results from our encuesta belied Spaniards’ assumptions about their own voting behavior. Of the 25 Spaniards and Catalans who voted in our mock American election, 18 voted for Obama and only 4 for Clinton. Even more fuerte, when we asked in question eight who people would vote for in a municipal election between Obama and Jordi Hereu, 40 of the 80 Spaniards and Catalans said they would take Obama versus 23 for Hereu, even though Obama doesn’t speak a word of català and probably knows next to nothing about Barcelona.

THEY SAY ALL POLITICS IS LOCAL. IN THIS CASE, THEN...UFF.
Because we are BCN WEEK, and because we’re all in Barcelona, we felt it necessary to include some local politics in our encuesta. So we asked people if they felt the mayor, Jordi Hereu, tiene las competencias necesarias para ser presidente del gobierno español. The people did not say yes. Well, at least not many of them. 11 Spanish residents said yes and 2 foreign residents said yes. Not one person who chose to write Catalan as his/her nationality said yes. Not one. In total, 76 people said no. What has this poor man done to deserve this? Why did this question receive such an overwhelmingly negative response? Several participants left the answer blank. Three of those (all foreign residents) drew large question marks on the page. This leads us to believe that they don’t know who their own mayor is. And that, in turn, leads us to say, "You should be ashamed of yourselves."

EL AIRE Y LA INVISIBILIDAD: DE ELECCIONES Y CANDIDATOS

by Jordi Corominas i Julián

Hace cuatro años, antes del atentado que lo cambió todo, paseaba por las calles de Barcelona y la gente notaba en el aire, por una mezcla de esperanza y deseo de cambio, que la victoria de Zapatero era posible. Las encuestas hablaban de un ligero descenso del PP, que aún así se acercaba a la revalidación de la mayoría absoluta. El pueblo, al que llaman soberano, no pensaba lo mismo. Dejando de lado manipulaciones estadísticas, es interesante constatar cómo, antes de la llamada a las urnas, se crea una dualidad opinión pública-opinión de la calle. ¿Y qué dice en 2008? Marx -Karl, no Groucho- decía que todo lo sólido se desvanece en el aire. El viento contaminado de Barcelona transmite unas bacterias verbales que hoy en día hablan de una convicción general en una nueva victoria de Zapatero. Pero… ¿Cuál es el pero?

Se centra en la invisibilidad, palpable hasta en los carteles electorales. “Si tu no vas, ellos vuelven” dice uno del PSOE con una imagen a lo Reservoir dogs. Ellos, la derecha, el de la barba, los mentirosos. Sí, ellos son el pero, y lo son porque pueden ganar y el temor a su triunfo se instala en el pueblo, eso sí, sin mencionar casi nunca el temido nombre simbólico del mal de las gaviotas: Mariano Rajoy. Parece invisible, y más en Cataluña donde el Partido Popular goza de muy poca aceptación popular. Sus votantes, en una mezcla entre miedo y falsa sensación de ser resistentes en tierra hostil, no declaran sus simpatías políticas; es como si no existieran. Su presencia se cifra en votos, que pueden ser decisivos. La gente teme lo que no ve desde que elmundo esmundo, si intuye su peligro.

Lo que se desconoce, en este caso por obra y gracia de los mass media, es que en Estados Unidos las elecciones no son entre Hillary y Obama, sino entre el ganador demócrata y el republicano, con toda probabilidad John McCain. ¿Por qué? Europa, que durante más de medio siglo luchó por no ser una colonia yanqui, prefiere siempre las opciones más progresistas del Imperio. Lo confirma la prensa y la mentalidad popular, harta, una de las razones del éxito inicial de Zapatero, de ver a su país en guerras ajenas, deseosa de sentir que su territorio tiene capacidad de decidir en asuntos propios y ajenos. El aire en este caso dice que con los demócratas es más probable que suceda, de ahí la elección del Viejo Mundo, que sin embargo tendría que ser más consciente de las posibilidades del hombre invisible republicano, que si gana, pues en USA la igualdad entre ambos candidatos se presume extrema, dará un susto demuerte amuchos, como si de repente su no-visión cobrara forma humana y la realidad volviera a su cauce de siempre a nivel electoral, con dos grandes rivales y una sola presidencia de Estado. No vale decir no sé quien es el tal McCain, ¿el de las patatas? Existe, y saberlo es una mera cuestión de querer informarse sin sucumbir a la presión mediática. Informarse para conocer.

Los otros invisibles son pequeños y también participan. ERC, CIU, IU, PNV... ¿En el mundo de la competitividad a quién le importan? Las elecciones son como un partido de fútbol, o si quieren como una corrida de toros. Y que yo sepa el torero no mata a la nada. Lucha contra alguien. ¿Básico, no? Spain is different, baby!

MOST OF THE TRULY PRICELESS GEMS DON'T FIT INTO POLLING REPORTS. HERE, THEN, A FEW OF THE BEST THINGS WE HEARD AND READ DURING OUR MOCK ELECTION

by The Poble

answer to question 4:
"Confió en las personas, no los políticos."

two 13-year-old Catalan kids preparing to vote:
1. "Who do we vote for?"
2. "PSOE. PSOE."
1. "And which one is that?"
2. "Zapatero."
1. "Ok."

answer to question 9:
"Sí que estarán a la altura porqué es facil estarlo."

answer to question 12:
"Sí que la política importa, solo que votar no hace mucha diferencia si se vota siempre en el mismo sistema corrupto y degenerado."

regarding all the American political candidates:
"Que s'en fotin!"

answer to question 12:
"No comprendo a los políticos ni a sus objetivos. Demasiado ambición económico, de poder y agresividad."

on the finer points of language:
"Oh, I saw a question like yours the other day on the Internet. It was, 'Is a woman as smart as a black man?'"

answer to question 9:
"Ninguno está capacitado, tampoco los norteamericanos."

regarding the ballots we created on our A3 office printer:
"Cal posar el DNI?"

answer to question 12:
"Es una paradoja. Si votas participas de todo el sistema, y si no lo haces que te unes a la masa que ese día prefieran dormirse en cama."

woman not excited by our project:
"¡Con usted, ni el agua!"