How to keep your sanity in world that is too right-wing for, well, sanity!

 

 

 

 

For the past few years, when the political situations in Catalonia, Spain and the UK got too much to bear, I turned to the antics of Trump and the Republican party to demonstrate that there were depths that this side of the Atlantic had not yet plumbed.  Now that Trump is more of a distant malign emanation from the depths of swampy Florida rather than an ever-present daily horror show in the newspapers, one has to rely on the pathetic, yet entirely disgusting, cavorting (I can’t think of any other word to describe what should be a serious political party) of the Trumpian Republicans in Congress and the Senate to set against whatever depressing failures one sees around the political sites in Spain and the UK.

     I have realised that I simply can’t do it anymore, by which I mean reading about Republicans with the semi-detached amazement at the jaw-droppingly callous human distain that they display on a daily basis.  I can no longer pretend that the grotesque views that Republican espouse were a function of The Orange Small Handed Horror.  Whatever the Republican Party might have been in the past, what it is now is a morass of ante-diluvian viciousness: the anti-abortion, election “rigging”, voter suppression, homophobia, etc etc etc – all the tropes of the far right coming home to roost (if they ever left) in the comfortable prejudices of an apology for a political party.  What is happening today is that the repressive idiocies of the Republicans and the super-charged language of political hatred and contempt that they use against their opponents is all too present in the life of politics here in Europe.

     The ‘comical’ lies of Trump are more than matched by the serial mendacity of Johnson.  Johnson now is a flagrant liar because he makes no attempt to correct the record when he has been found out.  And still the Conservatives are ahead in the polls.  Why should a liar change his deceit when he doesn’t seem to be penalized for the lies he tells?

     England and the USA are cursed with a two-party system: Conservative and Labour; Republican and Democrat.  Where do the votes go for those voters who look with something approaching horror at the way that they right wing parties are heading? 

     In the USA, the rhetoric of the right means that even the mildest of the Democrats is branded as extreme left wing or “Socialist”, whereas here in Europe they would be seen as just left of centre.  Old fashioned Tories must shudder to see what the party has become under the “leadership” of the third-rate chancers who now control the Conservatives, but their escape route of the Lib Dems has long since been shown to be a wasted vote and they probably will never bring themselves to vote for Labour, even with that nice Mr Starmer as leader.

     The situation is different in Catalonia, where the national conservative part PP has a derisory following and the so-called “centre right” of C’s has also been rejected at the polls.  The “”Socialist”” party PSOE and a variety of Independence and left-wing parties hold sway here, but we have no government as the parties have found it impossible to work together to get some sort of coalition off the ground.  As the days go by with a government “in functions” the frustration of the voters becomes more and more palpable.

     In a way in which I have never felt so strongly before, governments are simply not working; justice is becoming a by-word for partisanship; inequality is becoming more and more pronounced; corruption is rampant and the ordinary voter is made to feel more and more irrelevant as the tiny percentage of the rich and the powerful continue to act with absolute impunity.

     The word “Democracy” has become devalued as politicians mouth the word but ignore the concept in the ways in which they behave.

     Biden is trying to make a difference.  In spite of the torrents of abuse that he has to take as he tries to redress some of the worst excesses of his predecessor’s reign of terror, he is a beacon of hope.  But what is going on in the red states of America in the almost comical attempts to gerrymander the political situation to benefit the right is a worry.  Biden does not have his full term to make a difference.  His majority in the Senate is on a knife edge and if that is taken away by Senate elections next year then we have seen previously that a hypocritical Republican Party will be much more than willing to sacrifice country to the demands of the Party and stymie any bipartisan legislation and wait for 2024 to Bring Back Trump to win again!

     The election in Madrid will be an indication here of how the political situation is working.  The leader of Madrid at the moment is an unprepossessing Zombie of PP who has made the most remarkable pronouncements in the lead up to the voting.  We have an extreme right-wing party which is openly Fascist and revers the late Fascist dictator Franco.  The level of political debate is debased.  Threats and counter threats depress.

     It is very difficult not to be depressed at the prospects for a positive outcome to the election in the febrile atmosphere where everything seems to be tainted by Covid.

     But I remain an optimist.  

   And as long as I stop reading about red-neck, red-state Republicans and concentrate on things like the medical personnel who have worked tirelessly to vaccinate and medicate, then I can always look forward to a communal recognition that unselfish caring is also positive self-regard.

Deja vu - again!

 

There was a time (I’m sure that there was a time) when Corporal Jones’s hysterical injunction in Dad’s Army “Don’t panic!” was funny.  We could laugh at his over reaction to all and every situation as he blindly staggered around in all directions!  Now his gibbering proclamations seem to be the absolute norm as each new day brings in news of yet another backward, self-harming, political disaster.  The seemingly inexorable slide to the right of people as they feel that traditional politics has done nothing for them is horrific.

The latest backward step has been taken in Spain, to be specific in Andalusia in the south of the country.  This region is the most populous in Spain and has been ruled by PSOE (the so-called Socialist party of Spain) for over thirty years.  As with all political groupings that have had power for so long, Andalusia is full of crony-corruption and the word “socialist” is the title of the party is a grotesque misnomer.

Years of mismanagement came to head in the local elections on Sunday.  Added to mismanagement of the region, you could consider the fact that this is the first real opportunity to give a reaction to the “Socialist” Prime Minister who has taken over from the irredeemably corrupt PP group of conservatives; an opportunity for disenchanted (ha!) PP voters to move over to another right-wing party like the sluttish Ciudadanos party who will link with anyone if they can get a whiff of power and, for the first time since the demise of the dictatorship in Spain, an extreme right party Vox.

Both PP and PSOE have lost seats, so the only way that the party can retain power is by joining with another party.  Podemos is the most left-wing mainstream (sort of) party in Spain, but even if PSOE and Podemos joined together, they would not be able to gain a majority.  On the other wing, the three parties of the right and extreme right would have a majority if they decided to work together.

Seats
PSOE–A			30.28%
PP			23.85%
Cs			19.27%
AA			15.60%
Vox			11.01%

Popular vote
PSOE–A			27.95%
PP			20.75%
Cs			18.27%
AA			16.18%
Vox			10.97%
PACMA			1.93%
Others			2.38%
Blank ballots			1.58%

In response to the situation in Catalonia and the strength of the independence movement there has been a marked growth in nationalistic politics in Spain with much waving of the Spanish flag and chanting of ¡Viva España!  Both PP and Ciudadanos have moved substantially to the right with the new leader of PP actually saying that colonialism was not a bad thing, but was the creating of a Greater Spain!  Ciudadanos has become more stridently anti-immigrant, and I am ashamed to admit that this discredited party actually has the largest number of seats in Castelldefels – though no majority and they are therefore not in power as all the other parties have combined to keep them out.  Quite rightly too!

But it is a national disgrace that a party like Vox has managed to gain seats in any regional parliament.  The Constitution of democratic Spain (flawed though it is) is only 40 years old.  Franco died in 1976, this is not ancient history, how has the reality of the dictatorship become so blunted that people can vote for a party like Vox?  But they have.  And we will have to deal with the movement that could well become a national phenomenon.

As in so many countries around the world politics is now so divisive that reasonable discussion seems to be beyond virtually everyone.  Fact based evaluation seems to be passé nowadays as we live in a post-truth environment where opinion is valid and is proof enough in itself without relation to the wider world of reality.

Vox is the shadow of fascism rising again.  Their hate filled rhetoric utilizing all the tropes of the extreme right are depressingly familiar with anyone who has read the history of the twentieth century.

 

I suppose that one of the major differences between past situations in the twentieth century and the here and now is the abdication of the “leader” of the free world from a collaborative engagement as an ally with the people of the democratic world, to a detached, petty, Twitter dominated, isolationist nationalism.

And as if the world situation was not dire enough, I get the results from my first Catalan examination tomorrow!

'Twas the day before . . .

 

“¡Valiente!” commented gentleman on the stairs down from the restaurant where we had just had lunch.  I wish that I could tell you that he was commending me on some characteristic act of bravery, but he wasn’t.  He was making a comment about the fact that I was wearing sandals.

I suppose that the 20^th of December is fairly late in the year still to be in denial about the demise of summer, but I am.  And I would further maintain that, as an ex-resident of Britain, I can still tell that the temperatures that I experience even in the harsher months here in Castelldefels are as nothing compared with the temperatures that I would experience were I still in my home city of Cardiff.

Not that Cardiff is really cold.  At least in comparison with the rest of the UK.  I noticed on weather maps that the temperatures in my city, while hardly tropical, were usually among the warmest on our benighted islands.  And for me, it was never really the low temperatures that got to me about the British weather: it was always the rain and grey skies.  

A cold and crisp December day in Castelldefels I can take, but take that temperature and place it in a sky sullen with washed out clouds and a soul-destroying drizzle permeating every inch of clothing in southern Wales and I start turning towards Strindburg for light entertainment!

And my feet don’t feel the cold as much as other parts of my body.  I am not an idiot, I remember my father’s comment, “Only a fool or a pauper is cold!” and maintain that I am neither, nor cold.  For example, I am typing this on the third floor, looking out (well, I can touch type) through single glazed French doors and windows that do very little to keep the cold out, so I have the central heating on.  We have two duvets and my grandmother’s eiderdown on the bed: we are warm.  But I can wear sandals without my feet getting cold.

They (my open feet) have become something of a defining feature of my winter wear here in Castelldefels.  Catalan people dress according to the month, whatever the actual weather is like.  December is Winter, you must, therefore, be thoroughly and warmly dressed up.  Young children display all the characteristics of victims about to be pulled apart by horses, as they wear so many layers of clothing that their arms and legs are angled away from their rotund bodies so that they look as though they are little neophyte priests with their (well wrapped) arms perpetually raised in blessing!  If my feet felt cold then I would wear shoes or trainers.  But they don’t, so I don’t.

The restaurant was at the bottom of our road and next to the beach, with startling views of the Med.  The meal was excellent.  It started with calçots - a local variety of an leek-like onion which are cooked over flames until the outer surface is charred and blackened, then they are wrapped in newspaper and served with a tasty sauce.

The real delight of this dish is that it is filthy.  You are provided with a paper bib and plenty of serviettes because to eat the calçots you have to peel away the outer layer, with blackening hands, extract the long oniony inside, dip it in the sauce and then lower it into your open mouth.  Not an elegant way to start the meal, but a deeply satisfying one!

My main course was of a fish called “denton” which is in none of my Spanish dictionaries and is unrecognized by Google translate.  I was told it was “salvaje” (wild) and when it arrived it was complete with head.  The flesh was juicy and sweet and I can’t say I recognized the type from its appearance.  The real joy of this course, though, was the vegetables: a mix including mushrooms, asparagus and peppers.  They were cooked al dente and had the sort of taste that makes you believe that being a vegetarian might not be such a bad idea after all.  That idea doesn’t last, but it is nice to have a dish that makes you believe it if only for a moment.

The last course was a sort of chocolate sponge, cream and caramel topping that I will not describe further as I can feel the calories adding themselves to my girth even as I think of them!

The wine was more than drinkable and my post meal cup of tea was acceptably strong and the milk was brought in a little jug and it was cold.  Believe you me, that last detail speaks volumes.  It has taken me a long, long time to get restaurants in our usual round to produce a cup of tea that would not have British people phoning for the kitchen police and, even though I give exhaustive and exhausting instruction as to how I expect my tea to arrive, I am constantly flummoxed by the details that Spanish tea making assassins can get wrong.

And so home after a little light shopping for the final aspects of Toni’s Christmas present and the realization that we are actually fairly well set to survive the season and to my delight and relief, Toni has volunteered to wrap the presents tomorrow.

Tomorrow.

December 21^st.

Perhaps everything that I have written up to this point as been to avoid typing, or even thinking about what is going to happen tomorrow.

The election in Catalonia.

Today is the day of reflection.  Candidates have ceased campaigning, and today is the day when people can think about what has been said (and shouted) and weigh up the possibilities and make a measured judgement about how to cast their vote.

Today is also the day when the leaders of all the political parties but their rivalries aside and join together in a photoshoot which shows them all together.

But not this year.  A photoshoot of all the leaders would be a tad difficult as one of the leaders is in prison and another is in exile in Belgium!  So the shoot has been cancelled.

Now right thinking people (i.e. me) might think that this non-happening photoshoot is the clearest indication possible to voters that some sort of Rubicon has been crossed.  The courts have been politically manipulated and motivated; an 'invasion' has been mounted against the Catalan government; our leaders have been cynically deposed; a minority government has staged a pseudo coup d’état, among other things.

It is perfectly easy, of course, to take a radically different view.  To aver that the ‘deposed’ politicians have behaved in an unconstitutional way, they have used public funds in an illegal fashion, they are seditious and in rebellion against the state.  The minority right wing Spanish government therefore, has done no more than assert the rights of the majority and uphold the constitution.

If we had a Spanish national government that wasn’t so deeply mired in corruption; if we had true separation between the courts and the executive; if we had politicians who thought about the country and not their own well being; if we had a President who had political nous; if . . . and so on, and so on.

Rajoy is President, he must accept the lion’s share of responsibility for the present situation.  He has been president for some time.  His party objected to the settlement, that passed both houses in Parliament, that would have given Catalonia a different status and got the higher courts to overturn the plan.  He has been president while the situation has worsened and he has done nothing to find a real settlement.

Perhaps Rajoy’s ‘master plan’ (I use the term very loosely for a political pygmy like him) has been to force things to a catastrophic denoument then sweep in like an avenging angel and reset the relationship with that 'difficult' region/country of Catalonia once and for all.  After all his party scrapes lower than 9% of the popular vote into his grasping paws, and he has nothing to lose and everything to gain by trying whatever he feels like in a country that has constantly rejected him and his ‘ideology’.  

Perhaps chaos is what Rajoy has been working towards.  If he has, he has royally succeeded!

So tomorrow is the vote.  Toni is confident that the independence parties will get over the magic 68 seats needed to gain an absolute majority.  I'm not, but I am prepared to go with his optimism.

As an outside observer I have been shocked at the one sided reporting of the election.  Rajoy knows that his own corrupt party stands no chance of winning in Catalonia and so the power of the right wing press and the money of various industrialists have gone into Ciudadanos that, although it sometimes like to describe itself as a centrist party, votes or abstains to aid the minority right wing Spanish PP governing party.  Rajoy knows that a vote for Cs (Ciudadanos) is, in reality a vote for the continuation of his corrupt government and the only way that he is going to get anything approaching a majority in Catalonia.

The Spanish equivalent of the British Labour party, PSOE or PSC in Catalonia have sided with PP and Cs.  They do have a policy or renegotiation of the relationship between the regions and the central government.  They reject the idea of a referendum for independence.  They have lost credibility, and in all important aspects will, will have to vote with what are their natural enemies if they wish to prevent a declaration of independence by Catalonia.  They do not have individual power or the likelihood of a coalition to get their ideas anywhere.  

The same goes for Podemos, the further left party.  Their idea of a binding referendum is doomed to failure in the national government because they do not have a majority or partners who might support their ideas.  Without power these parties can say what they like, but it is not going to happen.

Even if the independence parties gain an absolute majority tomorrow, they will have to cope with the implacable opposition of Rajoy and PP with the support of Cs and the active support of PSOE voting with these parties or usefully abstaining.  PP will, therefore, get what it wants.  And it has a built in majority in the Senate.

Whatever happens, it's going to be a rough time for Catalonia.

Keep watching!

They're royally at it again!

The British Royal Family seems hell bent on killing me.

Why, I ask myself, do the future nuptials of the second grandson of an ageing Germanic dwarf squatting tenaciously on the British throne merit even a mention on Spanish television, let alone a fairly extended puff.  On Radio 4 yesterday when I listened to the news, it was the lead item!

I am just waiting for some lickspittle apology for a journalist to suggest that the wedding (sorry, The Wedding) of these two young people (to whom as human beings I bear no ill will and wish all the luck in the world for their successful future) will bring a moment of happiness and delight, will lift the spirits of the nation when so much of what happens in the world today, and especially in Britain is so dull and dour!  Surely, they will state, only the most dyed in the wool sourpuss could fail to allow the spirits to be lifted by such a fairy tale narrative of true love!  Well, well, well, no sooner speculated about than it happened on Radio 4, the “little patch of brightness” justification for a totally unjustifiable institution.

The Coronation of Elizabeth II has been described as a bright splash of colour in the drab days of the early 1950s.  The Festival of Britain of 1951 (which had been strenuously opposed by the Conservatives throughout its development) had offered a picture of progress dangled seductively (though impossibly for most) in front of a population hungry for something more than they had been enduring in the days and years of austerity after the end of the Second World War in 1945.   

In the year of the Coronation in 1953 food rationing still had a year to run.  Rationing meant that when buying certain food items, coupons torn from an officially distributed book had to be presented to the shopkeeper so that only the government imposed limited allowance could be purchased by an individual.  Meat was the final item to come ‘off ration’ in 1954.

In a post-nuclear age in which an atomic and a hydrogen bomb had been dropped, in a time in which an entire continent (and indeed continents) was being redrawn and rethought, the British press and a young BBC television system colluded in the celebration of an anarchic, anti-democratic hereditary power grab completely at odds with the meritocracy that people thought they were voting for in the election at the end of the war.  
‘Bread and circuses’ to deflect the attention of the population from what is important, worked for the Romans and has worked for unscrupulous governments ever since when they needs to hide harsh reality from a population which should be rising and smiting the rulers who continue to take advantage of them.

I feel sorry for Charlie-Boy as he ages into a crusty old fuddy-duddy, seemingly and bizarrely older than his ancient mother.  When speaking of the succession people always think of the grandchildren’s generation and not that of the heir apparent.  Who, let’s be fair, wants to see an ageing nonentity decked out in fancy dressed clothes trying to eradicate the memory of his mother who always did things so much better than he?  He is going to look and sound absurd when he finally gets to mount the throne and he, like so many members of a ‘royal family’ which only exists because a supine government allows it to exist, actually believes that he some something unique and god-given to bring to political debate.

Via the ’spider’ letters to governmental departments we know that Charles has been trying to influence policy, trying to act as if a king-in-waiting actually mattered in the day to day running of the state.  Mostly, of course, these superannuated ‘royals’ are knobheads more attuned to going on holidays than having an understanding of affairs of state.  They have carnal affairs, are filmed frolicking about naked, keep their mouths open when they should be shut, make the most of their ability to have a comfortable life and then drone on and on about concepts like ‘duty’ to keep us grateful.

The fact that a royal family exists anywhere in Europe today, is a condemnation of the people of the counties that allow them to parade their ‘birth right’ advantages.  Our queen is queen because her playboy uncle had an unsuitable affair with a divorced woman and her father smoked himself to death.  Et voila! A ‘royal’ princess is encouraged to mount the Confessor’s seat and be crowned with an absurd bauble whose vulgarity is only mitigated by the sheer cost of the thing.

Here in Spain we have an arrogant and tall monarch who has taken to the television to lecture Catalonia about their naughtiness.  The historical irony of having a member of the House of Bourbon lecturing anyone is too sad to even be amusing! 

Our King is King of PP and PSOE – they after all did the stich up to ensure that he succeeded his father, there being no process in the Constitution to facilitate abdication. 

His father, the elephant killing, philandering, failure ‘abdicated’ rather than take the continuing poor publicity which was centring more and more on the institution of the monarchy itself.  In an astonishing broadcast (or rather one of his astonishing broadcasts) that he made, I think to demonstrate the fellow feeling with his subjects that were reeling from the financial collapse of western capitalism (just before he went on an all expenses paid luxury safari to kill elephants) he emphasised that we are basically all in this together and he uttered the deathless words that, “Justice is the same for everybody!”

Except of course it isn’t.  Not here in Spain.  We are not all equal before the law, that is to say The Law is there for everyone, but certain people can only be tried by higher courts e.g. Senators and Members of the Congress of Deputies.  Justice is not the same for everyone, that is a lie or at least a bending of the truth to such an extent that you are basically saying “the thing that is not”.  In Britain and Germany the number of people who are in a privileged position as far as the law is concerned is precisely zero.  In Spain there are hundreds, if not thousands.

The playing around with concepts of freedom and liberty are going to be particularly obvious as we move into the election campaign leading up to the crucial vote on December 21^st which is universally seen as a referendum on independence for Catalonia.

Our President and key members of government are in exile in Belgium; members of the government have been imprisoned by the National Government here in Spain and two members of independentist organizations have also been imprisoned.  A western European country with political prisoners!

The fountains in the centre of Barcelona have been illuminated with yellow light, a tribute to the yellow ribbon worn by those who are demanding the release of the political prisoners.  This illumination has been banned by the electoral commission – I wonder if they are going to ban colours which match the political parties of the opposition to independence?  I think not.

The judges were supposed to have delivered a ruling today about the continued detention of the political prisoners.  Finance has been organized, as well as a party to greet the freed prisoners.  The judge, without explanation, has delayed his pronouncement until Monday, we suspect because of the preparations laid to make the most of the release of the prisoners.  Petty spitefulness well worthy of their paymasters in PP.

So, if you can remember that far back in this screed, just why did I accuse the Spanish ‘royal family’ of trying to kill me?  Well, I have high blood pressure (controlled) and the royals and their lickspittle backers in PP, PSOE and Cs seem to be going out of their way to see just how much aggravation I can take until I break or burst!

To which the answer is: having lived through the Evil Reign of Thatcher and the lower than vermin Conservatives and come out the other side, having to deal with nasty make-weights like Rajoy, The King, Spanish Justice, Cs and PP are more like limbering up exercises than anything truly hurtful.

Bring it on!  And let’s see what happens on the 21^st of December!