Cav's Place

I’m about to go out to vote, and over here that means casting no less than five votes today, since our officials have decided to lump our local elections together with those for the European Parliament. On the other hand, in a few other countries the European elections have already taken place over these past few days. But in most other EU countries, today is the day of the European elections, with one vote to cast that really will have a significant impact on where the European Union goes over the next five years and how the multiple crises will be dealt with, or even whether they’ll be dealt with at all. So I’m just taking this opportunity to ask everyone to go out and cast an informed vote, seeing this action for what it is, a far from sufficient but definitely necessary act of involvement in public life, a practical requirement of being a citizen, and a prerequisite for having any sort of say in what happens between elections, for any sort of right to complain, demand, protest, petition or, in general, express any sort of opinion. Express it now, when you’re asked in a formal manner, and then continue to get involved in as many other ways as you can.
And these really are critical elections, with the far right, “eurosceptics” and allies of Putin’s Russia continuing their surge, the big business lobby continuing to do what it has always done, and the support for even the terrifyingly weak existing or drafted environmental regulations, for proper social policies, for Ukraine, for European integration, or even for EU and even NATO membership, waning. So, if you are fortunate enough to have some proper Green-Left options in your country that also stand firmly for the European Union and against Putin’s Russia, please vote for them, if you haven’t done so already. And if that doesn’t exist, try to see who’s likely to do the most for the environment, first and foremost, then who may go against big business and support social policies that are actually suited for the future, who may push back the hardest against the far right, nationalists and “eurosceptics”, who may stand most firmly against Putin’s Russia, supporting Ukraine and any others who are or will be under threat, and preferably also who may support Palestinians, a larger European Union, accepting a few more countries in the foreseeable future, and freer migration policies… Or, if it comes down to such an unpleasant choice, who may at least do something for even one of those issues and the least against the others.
There’s no way around it, the situation will be bad for the foreseeable future and we’ll need to spare no effort if we’re to have any hope of improvement. But this is a deciding day for most of the European Union, a moment when we can make the next five years, and possibly far more than that, either a little easier or a whole lot harder. And yes, you may say that a single vote doesn’t count for much, but there may well be situations where just a few votes may decide whether one person or another will get elected, and later there may be situations where that person may make a difference. And, even if that won’t be the case, or if it won’t be the case for your vote, casting it is, as I already said, a prerequisite for making any sort of demand to be heard in the future.