BELOVED OSHO, MOST PEOPLE, RIGHTLY OR WRONGLY, EQUATE DEMOCRACY WITH THE FREEDOM TO CHOOSE THEIR POLITICIANS, YET YOU SEEM TO ENVISAGE A COUNTRY WHICH IS BOTH DEMOCRATIC AND POLLUTION-FREE, BECAUSE YOU SEE POLITICIANS AS POLLUTION. HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?

Just the very existence of nations, countries dividing humanity into stupid parts, is the whole game of the politician.
And this I call pollution.
It is poison to humanity.
That's why you don't see really authentically alive people in the world. You are asking, "People generally understand democracy to mean the freedom to choose politicians." Do you see the idiotic understanding of the people? It is choosing between poisons.
The bottles contain the same poison -- on one is written "Democratic," on another is written "Republican." Politicians have been befooling you. They have managed the whole strategy in such a way that you never become aware what is happening.
You choose one kind of poison for five years; for those five years you have to suffer that poison. After five years you are fed up with this kind of poison.
You change to another bottle -- Republican, Liberal, Democratic, Communist, Socialist. They are all available in all shapes and sizes, whatsoever suits you.
But you will fall in the same ditch.
Maybe there are minor differences between poisons, but poison is poison. I do not see democracy as the freedom to choose between the politicians. To me, democracy means there are no longer any politicians around.
You individually choose somebody you feel is the right person; there are no political parties. In a real democracy, political parties cannot exist; there is no reason why they should exist. People are intelligent enough to choose on their own.
The politician need not go and convince the people, "I am the right person and the other is wrong." And the other is also doing the same, and the poor people in their utter confusion somehow choose somebody. I have never voted in my life, for the simple reason that all those politicians and political parties are basically the same.
They want to exploit you, oppress you.
And it is a good strategy that after five years when you get fed up with one party, you can choose another. People's memory is not very strong.
So for five years it is the Republican party sucking you, doing everything that is wrong, deceiving you and the whole world.
After five years, it is the Democratic party doing the same thing behind a different label. And when for five years the Democratic party is ruling, you get fed up with them, and you forget completely that those Republicans had done the same before.
Five years is enough time for people to forget. And you go on moving between two parties......

OshO: From the False to the Truth
Chapter #23
Chapter title: Persecution cannot do any harm to you

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