One of the dumbest, but actually meanest things the opposition has to offer Poles is stupid populism. This eternal appeal to the simplest instincts, primitive psychological and social mechanisms, this rape of reason, this endless intellectual deceit. Populism, leaving no room for debate, destroys thinking on the most obvious issues, fueling endless arguments and grievances.
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The latest example is the increase in PKP ticket prices and I will use it, although it could be about fuel prices in Orlen, gas bills, nonsense about coal not burning, etc. The paranoid opposition wails indignantly and the boring media pecks up the tone. The internet was flooded with horror tickets. Well, ladies and gentlemen: those who have run amok over criticism that the train fare has become more expensive are idiots, or scammers, or paranoid, or all at once – some 3 in one, like most representatives of the inept opposition.
Trains are largely electric. Mr. Hołownia, have you ever seen a locomotive? She has something on the roof that looks like a hanger. This is called a pantograph. It touches the wire, picks up the current flowing through it from the power station, and transfers it to other wires in the locomotive, eventually going to the engine, which then turns the wheels. Mr. Hołownia, have you ever traveled by train at night? You then saw that the lights were on in the wagons. Well, it also came from this stream. PKP has to pay for this energy. To shorten and repeat: anyone who doesn’t understand, or pretends not to understand, that with huge increases in energy prices, ubiquitous high inflation, tickets had to get more expensive, that’s an idiot, a con man, etc. Yes, the war in Ukraine affects the price of a train ticket in Poland. Also because it was necessary to finance the transport of millions of Ukrainian refugees by rail.
If the crass populism spread by the inept opposition were just plain stupidity, one could snort irreverently. Unfortunately, it has a destructive power, because it paralyzes the normal, reasonable management of affairs – the country, its institutions, enterprises, etc. Stupid populists like Hołownia tell citizens that the price of a PKP ticket has risen due to some secret mechanisms, plans, the desire to rob citizens, inefficiency or whatever. If Hołownia ruled, tickets would be almost free. Representatives of the incompetent opposition refer to the simplest instincts, ill-considered reactions – which at first is not upset that he has to pay more for something. The citizen doesn’t rationalize the prices every time, he instinctively outrages, and then the boring populists step in, wanting to turn this momentary fit of rage into constant paranoia, to change the obsession. There must be a condition in which one citizen is pitted against another.
Dear railway worker, unlike the editors in eg Axel Springer, you will not get a pay rise despite inflation, because we will throw the German media at the PKP bosses, we will shout to the sky not to raise ticket prices, so there will not have money to fund the increase for you. There will be no investments, no renewal of routes or stations, we close many connections for which you have to pay extra, we throw employees on the sidewalk and all this to make the price of the train ticket the same as the boring populists thought. They are not interested in where the company is supposed to get the money from, how it has to make money to function, to provide a service to the citizen. They care about endless, endless tearing, barking, because they thought it would bring them closer to election victory. And since they have the backing of the populist blunt media, the cry is loud.
It makes a man sick to hear for the thousandth time the phrase from the mouths of representatives of the incompetent opposition: Polish women and Poles sitting at the table today are wondering how they will pay the installment, for which they will buy shoes, medicines, etc. for their child.. Not Mr. Biedroń or Hołownia. Poles don’t have such paranoia and obsessions as you want them to believe. They don’t wonder 24 hours a day how much the installment amount is, how much the bread costs, and how much the cucumber. They talk about a thousand other things. They don’t live in a state of perpetual nervous excitement that you would like to evoke, that rage, rage that Tusk talks about. Lord, the fact that you get angry, that you cannot control your emotions, the bile that overwhelms you does not mean that Poles suffer from the same ailments as you. They don’t live in eternal anger and understand that bread costs a little more, because gas prices have made fertilizer more expensive, mills and bakeries pay more for energy, and at every stage of the bread’s journey from field to fork there are still employees entitled to storage. The average salary in the corporate sector increased by 13.9% last year. This also affects the prices of products and services.
Those who want to train us and lead us to a state of eternal anger, dissatisfaction, constant suffering, spiritual torment, take advantage of the fact that we cannot relate our own feelings to general moods. These crass, cynical populists try to take advantage of our solidarity with other people, our empathy and create a totally false picture of reality. We may be prosperous, we may be better off, but when we keep hearing how bad things are, we may think the misfortune has befallen our neighbors. And those who heard the same, that against us.
This gap, dissonance can be seen in opinion polls. The latest, conducted in December by CBOS, shows that 53 percent. Poles think the country’s economic situation is bad, and 26 percent think it is neither bad nor good. At the same time, 49 percent feel that they live right, and 8 percent that wrong. The remaining 43% say it is neither bad nor good, in other words somewhat. Let’s compare – 8 percent. say their life is bad, but as many as 53% say that the economic situation in Poland is bad. We feel good, but we think others feel bad. This gap between the phatic state and perception is partly the work of dull, cynical populists. They made a disaster of us. And also that when we get on the train, we become victims of some kind of fraud, scam. That they just want to rob us everywhere, take advantage of us. That we really are a society of looters and thieves. We are the ones who work at Orlen stealing from PKP railway workers over the price of fuel. We sit in banks and rob pharmacists with loan payments. We drive the train, repair the rails, and now we have done it especially so that others – those from Orlen – cannot afford the train. We work in pharmaceutical companies and pharmacies, and we have raised the prices of medicines so much that a poor railway worker from PKP will die because he cannot afford them. We are part of a conspiracy and we have baked very expensive bread.
It is clear that the economic situation, and therefore the well-being of citizens, also depends on those in power. Today, however, ignoring the fact that there is a terrible war going on abroad, that the whole world is facing a crisis and that none of this affects the situation in Poland is an intellectual fraud, a lie, a vile blunt populism that destroys our lives and our social ties.
Source: wPolityce