Unna's Blog of Total Randomness

On Politics

17 Dec 2011 2 Comments

by Unna in Denmark, Photos, Politics Tags: Barack Obama, Det Radikale Venstre, Enhedslisten, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Politics, Red-Green Alliance, Social Democrats, Socialdemokraterne, Socialist People's Party, Socialistisk Folkeparti

If you’re friends with me on Facebook, you saw the image/link I shared. It’s from Anti-Rebuplican Crusaders by the way of Re-Elect President Obama and shared by someone on my friend’s list. The image features a picture of and quotes George Clooney. The quote goes:

I’m disillusioned by the people who are disillusioned by Obama, quite honestly, I am. Democrats eat their own. Democrats find singular issues and go, ‘Well I didn’t get everything I wanted.’

I’m a firm believer in sticking by and sticking up for the people you’ve elected.

If (Obama) was a Republican running, because Republicans are better at this, they’d be selling him as the guy who stopped 400,000 jobs a month from leaving the country. They’d be selling him as the guy who saved the auto-industry. If they had the beliefs, they’d be selling him as they guy who got rid of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ who got Osama bin Laden. You could be selling this as a very successful three years.

- George Clooney

Now, let me start by setting something straight: I’m not an anti-Republican crusader. I’m certainly not a Republican, either. On the contrary. But as the old quote goes: I may disagree with you, but I will fight for your right to have your beliefs/opinion/etc.

But I do think that Clooney has a point. I think that there is way too much mudthrowing in politics these days (also in Denmark) instead of acknowledging the actual accomplishments – and it overshadows the actual accomplishments. I honestly think that if the oppositions spent their energy on what they stand for and cooperate on what they actually agree upon (environmental issues, anyone?) instead of denying that there is actually something they agree with their opposing parties upon (12 minutes extra per day, five days a week or an extra hour per week of labor? Anyone?) or trying to trip their opposing parties in order to maintain their own or get (back) into a position of power, politics would be so much more effective as well as attractive. So much more would be done, and people like myself wouldn’t give up on political activity as easily or find the news so uninteresting and discouraging.

To be honest, I am one of those who was quickly disappointed after the latest election in Denmark (efterløn – anyone at all?). But I tend to forget three of the initial and instant accomplishments of that election:

1. We elected our first female Prime Minister, Helle Thorning-Schmidt.
2. We changed the political color, thus having a left-wing government after a decade with a right-wing government.
3. Every time I start feeling the disappointment sneaking in, I always think of what the alternative could be, and think that at least we’re going somewhat in the right direction by now.

Win-win-win!

Another thing I just realized was that they haven’t even been governing for 100 days yet (although we are almost there – the election was on September 15th), and I remember being puzzled by the people criticizing Obama for not accomplishing what he set out to accomplish before or about the time when his 100 first days had gone by. So this is also a note to self about just taking a step back, chill out, and give the politicians a bit of space to do their thing.

I do see the point that there sometimes may be a need for “watchdogs”, but there is a difference between keeping people to their word and throwing mud at them. Parts of that difference are respect, reason, and common sense. And may I add to that that it takes more than 100 days to get through some things and more than one electoral period to get other things through? Just sayin’. With the risk of coming off defensive, I can also inform the uninformed that the Danish system isn’t just bipartial (although it’s usually the leader of the Social Democrats on the left and the leader of the Liberal Party on the right who goes head to head for the position of Prime Minister); the Danish system is multipartial, meaning that a government usually consists of at least two parties who have to agree upon a government platform to govern from – thus naturally compromises have to be in the mix. As for now, we have the Social Democrats, lead by Thorning-Schmidt, flanked by the Social Liberals on the right and the Socialist People’s Party on the left having to govern from their platform while the Red-Green Alliance are yanking their chain from the far left. This also gives me reason to think that we might have to add about a week or so to the 100 days, as that was the time it took the three parties to agree upon a mutual platform to govern from.

You’re asking who I voted for? Well – that’s for us all to know, but for me to write a separate post on. If you know me well you already know, if you know me and the Danish parties you may be able to guess, and frankly I don’t think my confused pile of evenly confused thoughts on that subject fits into this post.