International peanuts

What could come out of a peanut? To answer this question we have to apply the following maxim of experience: one thing leads to another. So one peanut will most likely lead to another. But once upon a time, several peanuts teamed up and served as a springboard for a farmer to become President of the United States. Jimmy Carter was the highest-ranking U.S. president from 1977 to 1981. He came from a cotton and peanut farming family in Georgia, USA.

Jimmy Carter was more notable for his international than domestic achievements. Among other things, he was instrumental in shaping the Panama Canal and the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. Jimmy Carter was not re-elected as President of the United States and his place was taken by film actor Ronald Reagan. In America, presidential non-reelection is more than an election loss, it is a real failure. It is a burden that is difficult to overcome. However, in 2002, Jimmy Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In any case, this once again fulfilled another of life's maxims: no one is a prophet in his own land.

It has come to my attention lately that certain politicians are trying to hold on to the peanut doctrine at the international level. Politicians have a yearning to be international peanuts. But here one thing has not led to another. One peanut has not led to another peanut. Nor has there been a football match between peanuts to see who is the best. Nor have the peanuts been exposed to the general public for tasting. Rather, it seems that instead of the peanut doctrine, what is really going on here is a racket in which a great conversationalist is a great misleader. To converse and mislead at the same time may seem a contradiction. But it sells and seduces. Very much so. Surely, this idea of conversing while misleading underlies one of the oldest books on strategy in the history of mankind: The Art of War. When you are close you must appear far away, and when you are far away you must appear close.

The international peanut wannabe's matraquilla usually revolves around a breviary or dictionary of words. You can sort them alphabetically like any dictionary and quickly. There are about fifty terms. The words used by international peanut wannabes are often lit up by neon Mondays, even in broad daylight. You could go into high-flying politics with that terse vocabulary. Here is a summary of the most common claptrap.

A few years ago, the term social networks was coined in the news as if some people had discovered social interactions in the 21st century. Here I have to pay tribute to my aunt Mari Pepa because she was a precursor of a famous social network when mobile phones did not yet exist. In my aunt Mari Pepa's time there was only one landline phone that rang and always worked, even if the electricity supply was cut off. The landline phone did not need to be charged or plugged into any socket. My aunt Mari Pepa couldn't understand why when you called someone on their landline, instead of saying hello or good morning, the person on the other end of the line always answered by saying the following first thing: what's up. The name of the messaging application WhatsApp was probably taken from the English expression "What's up?", which translated into Spanish means precisely what's up. I think my aunt Mari Pepa had an inkling at the time that the peanut doctrine was one thing and the matraquilla was another.

We are still in the dungeon. Well, the left and the right are still in the same place. The left is supposed to be closer to the heart and the right is supposed to be further away from that vital organ. Although in everyday discourse politicians always forget that the pockets, in most cases, are on both sides of the trousers. The differentiation between the heart and the pockets is only accentuated when elections come around. When international peanut wannabes don't know what to talk about, they always resort to the right and the left to mislead. To talk for the sake of talking, without any significance, with the sole aim of apparently differentiating themselves is the calling card of aspiring international peanuts. To appear or not to appear: that is the dilemma of aspiring international peanuts.