People aren't snowflakes

Endless Audacity *I don't mind a little weight on my back zegt:
Dude, I's so old!
Endless Audacity *I don't mind a little weight on my back zegt:
which makes you even more old
Endless Audacity *I don't mind a little weight on my back zegt:
I just thought I'd let you know that
Kev (good music / i dance / no good music / i not dance) zegt:
ow screw you
Kev (good music / i dance / no good music / i not dance) zegt:
I do not age
Kev (good music / i dance / no good music / i not dance) zegt:
nah
Endless Audacity *I don't mind a little weight on my back zegt:
you just ripen
Endless Audacity *I don't mind a little weight on my back zegt:
... like cheese
Endless Audacity *I don't mind a little weight on my back zegt:

except cheese grows hair as it 'ripens'

While I know that doing a political commentary after the results are in, is slightly redundant, I'm still going to anyway, as I had this post sort of planned on friday, but I didn't get around to it.

Political commentary is a bit too strong a statement, since I know very little of politics. You hear a lot about 'the uninformed voter'. I consider myself a 'semi-informed voter' and I think there are a lot of those. I know what each party stands for in a broad way, their values and ideals (at least, insofar as it is still possible to find clearly outlined values and ideals in some of them) and I know their main political points. I don't follow debates, not even during election time, since I don't care very much what separate members of a party have to say, I only vote for the entire party, even if there are people on the list, like that Guidone woman there was so much to do about, that I don't particularly care for. Another reason I don't watch debates is because they always have Siegfried Bracke moderate them and just his face is enough to send me into a nightmare riddled snooze.

Anyhow, not having a sound political mind, like Kevin, who watches all things political with great ardour, I cannot comment on it in any kind of professional manner. Come to think of it, there's not a whole lot I can comment on in any kind of professional manner. I probably really should specialize in something... But that's neither here nor there at the moment.

Even someone like me who doesn't watch political debates and who changes the channel as soon as there is even the threat of Bracke's presence, cannot escape politics in election period, of course (although, was it just me or were there a lot less posters, flyers, pamphlets etc. this year?). Even at my work, where people ranged from semi-informed to uninformed, the subject was breached.

Now, from a sociological point of view, who are we at my work? We have a young, moderately educated homosexual (that would be me, in case it wasn't clear), we have two young mothers with partners, one 30something single mother of two and one on the way, one 30something married mother, two older mothers, and a bunch of young unwed women. Most of them, though not all, have high school diplomas and several of the young unwed women are following adult education courses. We all get paid uh not so much and none of us could be considered to be very affluent, with some even just barely keeping the head above water. Finally, with the exception of myself and two of the mothers, they have very little experience with so-called urban life, and Antwerp is almost a demonical, sinful city of fear to them.

Where do these people fall politically then? Since we don't discuss these things during the year (and honestly, if it was up to me, I wouldn't discuss them during elections either, because sometimes it's just easier not to know), I was in for some surprises.

We have one ardent Vlaams Belangblok supporter, who's voted for them 'ever since she was 18', which monumentous occassion happened 2 years ago. Her main reasons for voting thus were a) their position on the family, which is something I can at least sort of understand, a lot of my co-workers, all mothers or planning on speedy motherhood, feel that other parties do not pay enough attention to the family and stay-at-home mums and so on, and b) those dang foreigners. It always surprises me when someone who lives in a small rural town where I've seen about 5 foreigners (one being a German, one a Swede, one Portugese and two Turkish guys who keep a restaurant) can be so afraid and/or disgusted by foreigners, by which they always mean anything dark-skinned. They seem to feel that they are lurking around every corner, ready to rape our women and rob our men. When asked if they have ever had a personal problem with Them, it's always answers such as 'You can see them standing on the street and you know they're up to no good' or 'no, but my friend's friend once...' or 'On the television...'

Not to be the dense and claim there isn't a problem, but it's just that these people don't have a problem. They hear things on the television and are convinced that Antwerp is a den of throatcutting Turks who rape young white women in the name of Allah. If you hear them talk of Antwerp, a place they refuse to visit, it's a miracle any of us good honest white folks make it out of there alive, I do count myself very lucky in that regard then. They're afraid and they're conditioned to hate what they're afraid of, at least that's how I see it and I suppose you can't even be mad at them for that. But I can be mad at them for being ignorant in my opinion.

Then there's several who are liberals, a position I find hard to defend seeing that we are not exactly the audience they serve best in general. Being labourors on part-time of the lowest echelon, I fail to see they propagate anything that does us a whole lot of good. I do actually like VLD and SP.a together, they kept each other in a nice balance between smarter economics and better social measures, but I wouldn't want to see what happens if VLD got to do it all alone (not that we have to worry about that any time soon). Things do make a little more sense when you find out their husbands are actually their target audience, and when you find out that they literally have no idea whatsoever what VLD stands for, or what any of the parties stand for.

The most striking thing to me was the 'dilemma' the mother of four was having. She had no idea who she was going to vote for. She didn't like the things Vlaams Blokbehang stood for (except the family values, forgetting or neglecting perhaps that they would probably frown upon a mother who got pregnant by 3 different men without marrying any of them, or even being with them in a less traditional manner), but she was probably going to vote for them. Why, one might ask.

Several years ago, when her second child was still a baby, she went to the town council with a request. The specific request doesn't matter, but it was something that couldn't be done, as it would require bending certain social laws. While I did know why it was impossible to be done, she didn't know and it seemed a fair enough request to her, and had she known it was impossible, she still wouldn't have cared, because she wanted it in the best interest of her children, as she saw it.

Put yourself in the place of these council members. You have this woman who is already getting a lot of financial and other support at the expense of the state, coming to ask a completely unreasonable thing, thinking she is perfectly entitled to it. Do you give it much thought? Probably not. You may even treat her with a certain amount of scorn. And that is exactly what happened. She was in her own words 'ridiculed and cursed' by all council members. All council members? No, the Vlaams Blok people were 'very nice to me and they listened'. Did they offer her solutions? Heck no. Did she get what she wanted? Of course not, couldn't be done.

But they were nice and listened and despite disagreeing with almost every single thing they stand for, and abhorring their position on foreigners, she most probably voted for them. You can think she is an idiot, but I think she is like a lot of people are. And to me those other council members are the idiots.

Okay, I could probably go on for a while, but I actually have to go to work now, and hopefully after today's inevitable discussion of the election results, I won't have to hear about politics for a while again.

Ow, right, and to not make me a liar after my final line in the last post: Sex is fun!

(No seriously, I do have one lined up, but if I waited with this one any longer, it would have been even more redundant, but don't worry Kev, you'll get your post :))

Cheers!