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Why I will go Vote

27. 5. 2010 / Ladislav Stalmach

I myself won't go vote this year. I decided that way because our country is in such a state that we, to whom it is important not only one's own livelihood, but also that of their offspring, already start to show that we are not satisfied with today's conditions and we want change.

I belong to a generation which lived the first part of life under "communism" and the second in "freedom". If I could choose, I would like to go back to the Era 20 years ago. Not out of nostalgy for my young days, but because -- as one of the hundreds of thousands who went on that "Velvet" November 1989 went to the streets, I now feel cheated.

The past 2 decades have been characterized by all that, which our parents and teachers called names such as greed, loss of character and ethics, corruption, indifference to the misfortunes of others, or disrespect for the environment. In November 1989 we did not change the system so that in ten years every citizen owed more than a hundred thousand crowns and a few hundred people became so rich that they could well pay half of this debt themselves.

We didn't change it either so that politicians, instead of working for the country's interests, pushed through just those types of laws, which are tailored again just to suit those couple of hundred rich people. We ended up changing the regime so that from the embrace of one powerful protector we moved into the arms of an even more powerful guardian, or so that our intellectual elites, instead of absolving the Marxist-Leninist faculty, now get (without studying or attending the course) their diplomas from the Plzen Law faculty, or so that we had thousands of homeless people in this country or so that even more people will lose their roofs thanks to the legalization of usury loans and lack of interest by politicians about the difficult situation of the poorest citizens.

We didn't shake our keys so that from furnace smoke we got the pollution from millions of cars, so that we drive up the consumption of energy and materials.

There is a lot what I consider worse today than during the past regime, so that's why I say let's go vote. But before we go vote, let us think about it carefully, let us not vote because of billboards, which are just business from advertisment agencies and have no informative value for us whatsoever.

The only thing that shoud drive us towards a decision on who to vote for is the program of each party. A following that program should be required after winning the elections. And that is not enough. Let's engage in public life. Let's point out the abuses that happen around us. Let's defend ourselves from them. Let's suggest solutions.

Let's not be indifferent to what is going on around us. For our children.

Vytisknout