A post I wrote a few weeks ago may have been construed as a defence of the establishment at the expense of the loonies, the fools, the isolated maniacs and the marginal political parties. I said there was a risk in voting for self-styled “anti-political” troublemakers like UKIP or Pro Deutschland just because you’re dissatisfied with the general order of things, and then implied that dismissing the entire mainstream political class as an unwholesome layer of corrupt, parasitic, personality-free opportunists and bureaucrats could lead to being ruled by an idiot or worse.
Well, I was right, obviously – protest-voting, or voting for a party you don’t really agree with but whose appearance in local councils you hope will somehow annoy your leaders, is basically silly. For a start, it only encourages these people. You’re just leading them on, like a saucy minx, only to dump them when a proper election comes around. It’s political prick-teasing.
A much better way to assault the conceit of your elected leaders is to find an issue you care about and then sign the online petition. Signing online petitions is, I’ve found, not only a great way to start the day – I did “Stand With Edward Snowden” and “Monsanto vs. Mother Earth” before I even had breakfast – but they’re also a great way to soothe a troubled conscience. Have a sexist thought one evening, just sign a Femen petition before bed and easeful sleep is guaranteed.
Some people regard petitions as junk mail, and dismiss them angrily as a futile distraction. And sure, sending a petition to Barack Obama calling on him to reconsider his drone policy, or to Vladimir Putin calling on him to be a bit less of a cunt to gay people is probably not going to work. But with local petitions – the more local the better – and your odds improve a lot. For example that Coca-Cola ad that was hung on an entire building in Prenzlauer Berg – one online petition, and the world’s second biggest fizzy poison company issued an apology. And then this week we’ve had the massive success of the Berlin energy petition, which has apparently forced the senate to put the city’s energy supply back into public hands. This is not a lonely rock sticking up in a sea of rampant corporatization – well, it is a bit – but it’s also a victory for democracy and social sustainability.
So go forth and sign petitions about saving bees and Bradley Manning’s Nobel Prize (this will be his fourth nomination in a row, also thanks partly to petitions) and whatever pisses you off. It does matter!