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For reasons I fail to understand (well, it doesn’t bear much thinking about), one of the Spanish TV channels showed Smackdown late one night this week. Even if I hadn’t seen some of that obviously choreographed mock battle and the (bad, it has to be said, awful, unconvincing) act by the King and his wife afterwards, I was brought up on a diet of Saturday afternoon sport that always included wrestling, in the UK.
From an early age, maybe before I was five, I fully understood that the wrestlers were only pretending and not really intending to hurt one another. The only serious part of the afternoon was when the football results were read out. Heaven help the child (me) who DARED utter a sound while my dad ticked off the draws on his footie pools. Though I don’t know why he worried: he never got very many! 
Maybe the wrestling was one of the causes of my cynicism and scepticism now. It certainly helps me to get the point of this, which Uncommon Sense quotes:
“…both major political parties must be led by men of common purpose and follow a common political philosophy, but they must put on a great show of competition in order to convince the masses that there is a genuine conflict between them – a phony wrestling match in which the contestants take turns appearing to pulverize each other to excite the spectators. That way, voters can jump from one party to another to “throw the rascals out” every few years but never really change anything important. The ruling elite, he said, must arrange political affairs in such a way as to make voters think they are participating in their own political destiny, but that is merely an illusion to keep them content and to prevent them from meddling into the important affairs of state.”
While I would hesitate to classify wrestling as a competitive sport, I can certainly understand how the wrestling show is of large interest to the bevy of grannies who enjoy looking at the wrestlers well-toned muscles - such as is seen amongst the aficionadas of the Lucha Libre in Mexico. And I approve of the idea that many of those fighters use their position to get involved in social and political issues.
One of the problems I see with any government - once you get a good one (if such thing exists) of course - is that they never seem to get long enough to finish the job properly and accomplish their promises. Then, the outgoing party blame the new incumbent for anything that is not going well - that was actually something they damn well knew was a problem when they were in office and never got around to.
If you made terms longer and you got a bad government … Well, that would probably undermine the whole democratic process, as evidenced by those who somehow manage to reelect themselves, so I will admit that I don’t know what the answer is.
But I do know that we are mere pawns in this game.
Sometimes, despite being certain of my own political convictions, it does become confusing and difficult to tell the good guys from the bad guys (oh, why can’t they all wear white or black hats, like in the old Westerns?) The result, which I am sure we all think from time to time, is that they are all as bad as one another.
And it does seem to suit their ends that we know little enough about the whole process to only be confused and not actually enough to change anything.
The office of public service was supposed to be to elected by us, to SERVE us. Unfortunately, those who now hold most of these posts are too interested in how it can serve THEM. In that sense, the wrestlers have much stronger ethics. Sure they are paid well too, but at least they remember they are are paid to entertain us.
Sponzurz
