Marcelo's Reading and Thinking Log

Uma reflexão melancólica me assaltou hoje, da qual ainda não me recuperei. Passou o filme Beijos Roubados, de François Truffaut, na TV, que eu já vi, e eu parei para ver o letreiro, e ouvir a bela canção de Charles Trenet e Léo Chauliac, "Que resta de nossos amores?", de cuja letra o título do filme foi extraído. E pensei com meus botões (força de expressão, pois minha vestimenta não os possuía na ocasião): hoje esse verso dessa canção não despertaria devaneios ou suspiros nas mocinhas, mas protestos enraivecidos, passeatas ruidosas e escândalo generalizado. Afinal, beijos e outras carícias devem ser consentidos, jamais roubados. "Não" -- asseveram-nos em tom categórico todos os veículos de comunicação e órgãos oficiais -- quer dizer "não"! O assédio sexual, por certo, é um tópico momentoso que demanda a urgente atenção de nossos legisladores e juízes. Suas deliberações farão um bom espetáculo que sem dúvida roubará nossa atenção.

by Marcelo Gilli

In the year 4096, many years ago, humanity achieved such a nadir of uncivilization and decline that the elite, or what most resembled this group in that era, decided it was time to extirpate the cause of their sorrows. And the consensus amongst them was that said cause was populism.
The accepted definition of that word was the practice of promising goods to the people that one was not able to deliver. Alternatively, what made something populist was its property of achieving some good in the present by compromising the future well-being of the nation.
All the energies of the concerned citizens were devoted to making a president who was not a populist.
They were helped by the fact that the people were really tired of the situation in which they were, and of promises that were never kept.
And thus it went. They somehow got their man elected. A very serious man. An economist. A banker, even.
His first axiom was that nobody could be sure about the future, and thus it was best to be prepared for the worst. People had become soft through centuries and centuries of corruption, bad management, and, at the risk of being repetitive, populism.
It was necessary to toughen the citizens. Nobody knew what lay ahead. Softness was poisonous to the will. Therefore, he ordered that every citizen above a minimum age, and below a maximum one, would receive 50 lashes every day, dispensed in his or her respective town's public square,
The country's motto, displayed at all oficial buildings and public places, would be "Blood, Sweat, and Tears". (Originality was a luxury they could not afford.)
Economy was not our banker's sole area of expertise. In fact, he had a deep knowledge in all areas of administration. So much knowledge that he would do without any secretaries or advisers. All the staff he needed were a team of computer programmers. He hired the best in the country. Their task would be to code his government program into a computer program.
Our president would get very lonely in his cabinet. He got to traveling abroad a great deal.