Now they have us where they wanted us

  When the effects of the crisis (which we call fraud, theft, looting) are more heartbreaking: hungry children, families losing their homes, sick people who don´t get tested to save costs etc; the economic and political powers have managed to round up their agendas of social control: Now they have us where they wanted us.

 

  On the one hand, the Tax Agency has been dismantled, leaving the Large Taxpayer Unit in allied hands and dismissing, as with the tax inspector of the Cemex case, who dared to impose a fine on the multinational.
 

On the other hand, the public is dismantled and privatized: health, education and now security.
 

A tripled and perverse effect is thus created:
 

•   On one side, the inequalities between the meager elite politicians, bankers and businessmen impoverishing the rest are greater, many of whom were members of what was known as middle class and even upper middle.
•    And secondly, civil and social rights are restricted. An authoritarian program is being followed, but a message that they have clearly lost is being sent to society. Do not attempt anything against the oligarchy, because they can´t even hold the basic rights won (abortion, free legal aid, health, education).
•    Last but not least, a business is generated. Once the budgets are looted, there are intentions to take over infrastructures or "create needs" by destroying public competitors that was being supplied. They buy politicians to make decisions and then are rewarded with "super jobs" in a company, thanks to the famous system of "revolving door": an administration advisor today, tomorrow an advisor for the company he/she benefited as administration. 

  And to cover all this up, they need a smokescreen, a smokescreen so big it will cover up the colossal crime committed. Behold, they say, fortunately we have the Catalan topic. That's perfect. It arouses passions, bitter and simplistic debates, it wins accessions for parties of the right and it is controllable like a puppet.
 

  The old socialists, communists and anarchists knew that nationalism (not the people) was a valuable tool of the bourgeoisie to divide the working class, so it was radically incompatible with the left. To cite just a classic: Eric Hobsbawm. Not to add that the nation state is an invention that has become as obsolete as the oil lamp. Now the bourgeoisie are the four who hold the reins of it all, the working class, others, doesn´t matter what kind of tie we wear.

 

  On the eve of staging the "confrontation", called the train crash by some journalists, the "independents" of CiU and "Spanish nationalists" of PP, with the help of other Basques "nationalist” from PNV, voted together and scrambled, the new citizen security law that allows private security officers to perform police functions, and therefore have a guaranteed private police to whom they can pay. Coincidence? The same three parties had voted together other restrictive rights laws.
 

  Months before Rajoy y Mas secretly gathered in Madrid to plan a strategy. Here it is. We will spend a year of furious and sterile debate about Catalonia and "their right to choose". An issue, which will be resolved in a way that everyone will be happy. The cutbacks in rights and thefts will take a back seat. Their Millet, their Barcenas, their Alperis, their Gürtel, their Pallerols, their Pujol, their Employment ajustments, their Blesa, their Matas, their Urdangarines and etc., etc., etc., while they pluck us like a chicken and take everything that belongs to us all. Those who dare to rebel, will pay the price.
 

Train wreck? But they are all traveling in the same boat, all in first class, eating expensive cured ham and drinking French champagne. We are their galley. Another thing is that a flag is put in front of us so we can´t see or for us to charge, whatever is more convenient.
 

Spanish version

 

El Señor Gordo

El humor está aquí, en alguna parte

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Translation by Amanda Perri

Our friends from Cairo

  One day, the Egyptian army (funded by the U.S.) decides to dismiss and arrest the President Mohamed Morsi (whose sons are American citizens). Another president is appointed and a Nobel Peace prize prowls around with a position I don´t really remember. Spain, like other European Union countries, decided to call the event "interruption of the democratic process", as if you were to call diarrhea, interruption of the digestive process

  Most of the media decided to call things by their name and to call a coup to what had been a coup, but not before organizing debates where they could discuss whether the coup was a coup. In the end, as the tertullian’s and politicians like to say, reality is stubborn and the coups are coups. Did I repeat coup a lot?

  It all would be fine, except that the rebels are "our people" and the ones ousted from power after winning elections cleanly are the "others". The west has our people both for the right and the left, making the others more others. We are not sorry because the others are the Islamists. It´s true that the complex phenomenon of Islamism does not fit into the caricature of the fanatic with horns and a tail that sometimes they draw out for us. But to be honest, with the Islamists, by their nature, at least secularism (essential for any real democracy) and women's rights are in danger.

  But let us examine who our friends in Cairo are. It´s true that it all started with massive citizen protests against Morsi´s government, but no democratic country would have justified a coup - perhaps early elections - in the same way we don´t want Rajoy to be overthrown, but appointed an occasional cyclist commentator on Teledeporte.

  Hearing the outcry, the soldiers got down to work. When the military takeover they are accustomed to being just disinterested people and once strengthened, they really don´t like being squeamish negotiators (an advantage for the politicians, it doesn´t matter how sly they are). So the Egyptian military, which had in fact the power before the Arab Spring, with the excuse of popular protests, once again takes over.

  At the end we have the Islamists seriously pissed off and determined to regain power, summoning a celebration called "Friday of rage", as if it were a sequel to Freddy Krueger, and the army, with their royals settled in power, that do not hesitate to use a criminal and brutal repression of citizens participating in the protests.

  And these are our friends. Who shoot and kill people. We can say as Kissinger Somoza, the Nicaraguan dictator, "Yes, he is a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch".

  That’s what the Arab Spring ended up in? Between the criminal military and the non-encouraging prospect that the Islamists will regain power? Democracy is really difficult. You can´t improvise it in a few months or perhaps even in decades, because the respect for differences and tolerance is as sophisticated as the String Theory. Since I'm on vacation, I´m optimistic. In the Mediterranean, before the real spring, there are frosts that wilt the almond flowers. The trouble is that many people won´t see it. Neither that or anything.

Spanish version

El Señor Gordo

El humor está aquí, en alguna parte

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Translation by Amanda Perri

Gibraltar: Pirate Ship

 The person that defined Gibraltar this way was not a Spanish nationalist, an ardent defender of the recovery of the sacred Spanish sovereignty over Gibraltar (or The Rock, as they call it). He could have been, but he wasn´t. The person that defined Gibraltar as a Pirate Ship was a student from Gibraltar, a long time ago.  
I was one of those guys who could study a few months abroad thanks to the Erasmus grant (it permits university students to study a year abroad and learn a foreign language); this is the grant criminals now in power want to also eliminate. Thanks to the Erasmus grant I am not a complete ignorant. When I arrived in London I didn´t even know how to say thank you, thanks to useless English classes the Spanish school system gives you. I had never flown on an airplane and had hardly gone abroad. I arrived at night to Victoria Station and I was terrified and pinching myself to make sure that it was real. Manolo from Alicante was in London.

  I ended up at a University in the south of London called Kingston University. Apparently, it had some prestige in engineering. But of course not in Law, and I came from the University of Alicante (where it was easier to get to talk to the minister of education than your teacher, if he/she had the courtesy of appearing in class) and Harvard Kingston University, for some unknown reason, at the time was full of Gibraltarian students. So I tried to make friends with them. I made one pretty good friend, but I will not say his name because I still have hopes he will become Prime Minister. I was alone and the rest of the Spanish students were posh students from Algorta and its surroundings who did not want to deal with poor people from the Mediterranean. Gibraltarians speak Spanish (though sometimes they act like they only speak it a bit) and I was also willing to say amen to everything, give up the Spanish sovereignty of Gibraltar and as an offer, give them Gran Canaria and Tenerife with no shipping costs, all in exchange for some company.

On the other hand, I wanted to know a different version of the conflict, other than the official Spanish version. They told me this delightful story of self-determination referendum. Four crazy people voted in favor of annexation to Spain, or were they paid three pints to hide it?, and their neighbors put their bags in the border fence: touching. Actually, I soaked up much of the problem.
I´ll save you the historical and legal details, which are well known and can be interpreted at will, as it is indeed done.

The way the Gibraltarians twist it is touching, but I will not be the one to criticize it. Gibraltarians are as British as paella. Of course they are not Spanish, but there is a doubt that they can´t be considered Andalusian. Physically The Rock is a setting that mimics what was once an English village decorated with monkeys. In the ship's hold there is a network of money laundering, tax haven and a refuge for people with strange fur.

For the British, Gibraltar is a good excuse to baptize hundreds of pubs throughout the islands. In any of “The Rocks" you can enjoy a good "bitter" and rant against Chelsea. Most of the Spanish whose socks don´t smell, care about Gibraltar's future as much as Elche´s football team strikers’ shoe size, with the obvious exception of the people of the Campo de Gibraltar.

The pirate ship wants to continue navigating. But how do you do it with sharks? Meanwhile the fishermen and the environment pay the rum.

Spanish version

 

 

El Señor Gordo

El humor está aquí, en alguna parte

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Translation by Amanda Perri