Meaningless Rants

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I haven’t read the newspaper for quite a while now, so I don’t really follow Indonesian news. What’s the use? I only grow discouraged and angry every time I read the madness of Indonesia politicians, and it’s very seldom I see anything good or some really enlightening information.

But anyway, just for the heck of it, I read today’s Kompas. I just wanted to see what Hillary did on her visit here (a visit to a public bathhouse. Hmmm). And then I proceeded to the next pages and… lo! I found something interesting on the fifth page on the lower-left corner. It’s a section called “Spanduk Caleg,” or Legislative Candidate Banner. Well, that name doesn’t make sense - it’s actually a section where our legislative canditates are given a chance to say something about a predetermined topic to show how great they are so that the electorate may vote for them.

Interesting. I’ve been wanting to know who the heck are these people that litter every communities with their asinine posters and banners. So I read the section, and immediately I regretted it. The topic in this issue is: “How to improve the farmers’ welfare.” It’s choke full of generalization that doesn’t mean a thing. Well, to be fair, every one of them is allowed only two sentences or three at most.

However, here’s the worst one from Fathorrahman Khotib of Gerindra party for the 11th Madura district.

“One of the Maduranese’ jobs is agriculture, and I really am from the farming community, so I very much know the steps on how to improve the farming community in Madura.”

Yippi-ky-yay, that’s so reassuring Mr. Fathorrahman.

There’s one Saryono Jahidi of PKB for 10th West Java district that says, “whoever leads must be sure and brave to make Indonesia as an agricultural nation. Therefore there ahs to be a comprehensive agricultural development strategy.” Hmm, aren’t you going to be one of the leaders for the nation?

Eight candidates in the section, and none of them impresses me. Maybe I’m just too lazy to really find out the sources?