Commentary
Vote yes to say no to the Renzi economy
The referendum on offshore drilling in Italy today is a chance for ordinary citizens to assert their primacy over corporate interests.
The referendum today, beyond its specific scope, reveals the existence of two opposing conceptions of the world, of politics and, ultimately, of the meaning of life in our country and also beyond our borders.
Last but not least, the Renzi government, consistent with the previous executive governments and subservient to those it represented — that is, large industrial and financial interests — are already allergic to the first petition, which is to measure themselves against the direct expression of popular will.
Do not be fooled by the inevitable referendum on the constitutional “distortion”; Renzi does not take it for what it should be, a confrontation with the popular will, but as the projected plebiscite on his personal narcissistic leadership.
He believes that expressing his own opinion on strategic issues, pertaining practically and symbolically to the future of the people and the quality of their existence, is a waste of time.
Truly a singular idea of the value of direct democracy, but Renzi and his acolytes are wedded to an ideology that is based exclusively on the interests of the potentates of every sector of economic and financial activities.
The legislative action and its communication are enrolled in a whipped and threadbare vision of the way to govern a company that relies on the alleged reasons for the vaunted creation and/or preservation of jobs, as if economic prosperity could only be thought one way.
The purpose of this ideology is to present the alternatives to the economy of privilege as chimeras, or worse, as the result of conservatism, the worst enemy of hyper-capitalistic development stated axiomatically as the only way, the only virtuous solution.
All the efforts of those who oppose the debate on the merits of the referendum focus on discrediting its value, discrediting those citizens who, with civic passion, want the referendum to make their voices heard and not to serve vested interests and favorites for preconceived ownership.
What is the demand of the citizens who advocate for the referendum option? They ask to participate actively in all decisions relating to the health of human beings and the environment, and on issues pertaining to the relationship between economic choices and quality of life.
The ill-concealed sense of sufficiency, if not contempt toward those who are committed to the vote, says a lot about how those who invite Italian citizens to boycott the polls to sabotage the quorum, think about the major issues.
They want the democracy of unelected governments, or governments elected by formal elections, the result of a routine that has lost its meaning, given that the political class is increasingly farther from voters and increasingly engaged in a self-preservation without meaning.
Any citizen who has learned through the unsurpassed instruction of our wonderful Constitution is struck and surprised by the arrogance with which a prime minister, who has received trust from a de-legitimized parliament and was then elected with a shameful law defined by its own drafter as crap, invites to desertion from the act of ultimate expression of an authentic democracy.
The significance of the vote at this particular referendum, assumes a value of particular ethical significance.
By massively attending the polls, we declare that the citizens are the ones who decide the order of priority, that the common good is greater than any ambition of those who govern, that the will of the participating citizens opposes the arrogance of those who consider it irrelevant.
We declare that we are not the subjects of the interests of a few potentates, that the best economic choices are those that cater to the opportunities offered by an economic development based on the welfare of people and the health of the planet, today after the Paris climate conference, which, despite all its limitations, asserted the urgency of the ecological issue.
The decision maker of Rignano sull’Arno wants us to believe that he thinks this particular referendum is useless, but it is not so.
It is not hard to guess what the national Matteo thinks, for example, of the public referendum on public waters which attracted an overwhelming participation of Italians who, almost unanimously demanded that the water was to be declared a public asset. Is this the direction that the government intends to go? No way. So it’s not hard to guess that for our chairman of the board, active and direct participation of citizens is only one annoying encumbrance and it is alarming to see that the same contempting thought is expressed by our former President of the Republic Giorgio Napolitano.
We need to ask a serious question: but we Italians, have we had for more than seven years a super partes President or an optimizer of governments with little legitimacy?
Originally published at http://ilmanifesto.info/votare-si-per-dire-no-alleconomia-dei-sudditi/ on 2016-04-16