Thursday 4 February 2010

Personality politics

Local elections are coming up in Fondi and the walls of the town are plastered with advertising for the candidates for town mayor. They tend to appear in pairs, like teenage girls on a first night out. They use as few words as possible and prefer those words to have purely feel-good value. The bald man on the top right, for example, is saying yes to transparency. Beneath him the woman with the pleasant smile is suggesting that we start again, though to do what isn't specified. The man with the glasses on the bottom left is saying yes, you can, which is very generous of him, although, once again, I wasn't aware that his permission was needed. The girls on the top left have nothing at all to do with Fondi, or politics for that matter, but I felt like including them, if only to contrast their very focused plea with the vote-catching vacuity of the mayoral candidates around them.

What's even worse is that, in their frenzy to attract the punter, these mayoral candidates haven't seen fit to indicate their political allegiances. Where do they stand on all that other duller stuff, like job opportunities and how local money is spent and, sorry though I am to bring this up, the role of organised crime in local government? I mean, I'm all in favour of transparency, but not if it's the transparency of De Meo's spiritual father, Saint Silvio of Berlusconi. And knowing that yes, I can might make me feel empowered at the outset, but it starts to lose its appeal if the person enabling me thinks money-laundering, or illegal parking, or building a villa on public land, are some of the things I'm empowered to do.

I think I'll vote for the Faith Tones. They not only have fabulous hair - I know where they stand.

3 comments:

Rob said...

I think the Faith Tones are pretty dirty girls. Jesus use me indeed...

domenico basile said...

Ciao Charles, spero che dopo il nostro incontro tu abbia cambiato idea sulla candidata sindaco del centro sinistra per Fondi. ti consiglio di andare nel suo sito dove o indicato da cosa bisogna ricominiciare e dove biaogna arrivare.... comunque, credo sia giusto avere lo sfogo che hai avuto visto la pessima politica che si è fatta a Fondi in questi ultimi anni! Spero perà tu possa cambiare idea!!!

Charles Lambert said...

Ciao Domenico, non ho espresso nessuna opinione sulla candidata del centro sinistra perchè prima di aver parlato con te (e Giovanna Parisella) non avevo nessuna idea chi fosse! Io mi lamentavo proprio di questo - che tutti, indifferentemente, preferivano gli slogan o 'buzzwords' come diciamo noi, ai programmi. E' vero che si trova più informazione sul sito ma andare sul sito implica un'interesse già nato, che non è sempre il caso - come tu ben sai - qui a Fondi.

Personalmente, non ho nessun dubbio che la Papparello sia la candidata che dovrebbe vincere. Ma non mi baso sull'informazione che (non) c'è nella pubblicità elettorale...