There's this English saying, with unclear origins (read more here), that says that there is this curse: "May you live in Interesting Times". Terry Pratchett used it in one of his books too. The idea, of course, is that the history moments that are most studied and explained are those of turmoil, chaos and strife.
We are indeed in one of these periods. and I'd like to talk about two subjects related to that, the election of a new President in Spain and the latest judicial verdicts and actions by the UE tribunals and parliament.
First, it seems finally a President has been elected in Spain. This President has been very difficult to elect, since the party he belongs to didn't have enough representatives in parliament to be elected on their own. This means the party needed to pact with others, and traditional parties in Spain are really against that. They're used to order around and dictate, starting from a clean majority, if possible an absolute one, to rule whatever they want, regardless of the program they had. This party, PSOE, is no different.
PSOE has been defended during this period as a leftist party, and the election of this president has been indicated as a triumph for progressive forces. However, this is totally false. For a long time now, all around the world, powerful forces (aka rich people and the newspapers and news agencies/broadcasters they buy) have been moving what is considered the centre of the political spectrum more and more to the right, to accept certain policies as "moderate" when they're clearly right-wing and conservative, and to promote neo-liberal economies. Because of this, PSOE is being considered as "left", but that's blatantly false (at national level at least. it´s different at regional or city levels).
PSOE has accepted authoritarian ways to rule, has maintained laws that restrict freedom of speech and has used repression as a tool while governing temporarily in this period without majorities. PSOE also reformed labour laws in Spain in favour of the big companies, have delayed retirement age and all around applied neo-liberal policies for some time now, refusing to act on things like house prices or bank control. PSOE has refused boats full of rescued refugees that were at sea. PSOE has done nothing to tax more or stop giving public money to the Catholic Church. Their attitude till now regarding Catalunya has been exactly the same as PP, the extreme-right wing party of Spain, of sending police and tribunals and twisting legislation to punish people. And so on.
The only thing that PSOE has done that can be considered more "leftist" has been defending abortion rights, defending LGBT+ rights and Women's rights, and proposing to legislate on issues like Euthanasia or drug use. While these are noble causes, these alone do not define a leftist party, and plenty of moderate or right parties in Europe nowadays defend some of these positions too, so it's not like revolutionary radical leftist of them.
What's more, PSOE had the chance of ruling with a true centre-left party, Podemos, since last elections, but because they're centre-right they wanted instead to pact with Ciudadanos (another right-wing party) or rule alone, which is why they repeated elections. Problem is they lost votes and Ciudadanos sank even more, so these two options were definitely not possible and they were forced to pact with Podemos instead and, all of a sudden, defend themselves as "progressives" when they're far from that.
Having said that, this is better than the alternative. The alternative was the three extreme-right-wing parties of Spain (yes, we have three of them, we don't have a "new extreme right wing" now, we always had it, it´s just now split in pieces and that's good) ruling together, but thankfully they have been fragmented and don't have a majority to rule even if they pact. PSOE alone will not do much, but since it will have issues governing, the fact that they need to pact and negotiate is a good thing. We will see if Podemos and the other leftist parties can twist its arm enough for them to actually act and do some progressive things.
There´s people in Catalunya that say that PSOE is the same as PP, and to let them rule is bad. This reminds me on the campaign started in USA to convince progressive voters not to go to vote Hilary using targeted ads, that infamous scandal. While I agree that PSOE is not good, the reality is that the possibility of the extreme right parties ruling again is catastrophic. I´m not sure whats the best course of action really, but seems to me a scenario where they need to pact with left and independentist parties is better than one where all right-wing parties ally themselves and rule.
However, as a final note: This government won't push leftist policies enough and will still pretty much protect the powerful. If you want real change, PSOE is not the party, you need to vote more left. There's several options there (which is a problem, when there's this fragmentation too), but there are better left options. It's a matter of selecting one. And yes, they're not perfect. The curse of the left is that there's no perfect ruler, instead of the right where this doesn't matter because you just obey your leader. But still, vote the best left option that there is, or change is impossible.
As per the second topic: The UE tribunals have ruled that three Catalan politicians that could not swear on the Spanish consititution because they were in exile or in prison are members of UE parliament, regardless of the fact that they could not swear on it becasue members are elected by people voting, not by posterior procedures, and therefore the Spanish tribunals cannot prosecute them without the approval of the UE parliament. Two of them are exiled and will join the parliament on 13th of January, and the third one is in prison in Spain, but this verdict makes his trial void (and would need, legally, to be repeated after UE parliament allows it).
This has been followed by the UE parliament ordering Spain to fulfil the law (indicating without explicitly saying that they need to liberate the prisoner), since the UE Tribunal is the highest instance and the Spanish tribunals need to follow it.
This links nicely with my previous post. The problem of how Spain reacted to the Catalan independentists is that it's not legal, it's not democratic, and in general it's not how a progressive democratic country works. Spain has acted like a dictatorship, has twisted laws, bypassed rules, done whatever they wanted however they wanted it, ignoring their own legislation and just going for punishment, revenge and blood. Anyone defending that doesn't understand about democracy, regardless of your opinion on independence, and that's something that I really hope that those who do not defend independence understand, finally, with he help of Europe: Every Single Time that Europe tribunals have been involved, since they're really independent and democratic, Spain has been shown to not follow the law and to act incorrectly. Every time. And there's more to come, once other sentences reach UE tribunals too.
What's more: For all the ones that say they defend legality: As per the law, this prisoner should be freed and given access to UE parliament. I'm not going to say all laws are just, because I've previously stated that you should always question them, because dictatorships also have laws. But if you're not hypocrites, now you should defend his liberation, and ask Spain to follow the law. Or ask for the Spanish Government and the Spanish Tribunals to be accused and judged, same way you asked for the Catalan politicians to be judged.
Or you truly, really, believe that Spain is a better democracy with a better judicial system than all the other UE nations combined?
We are indeed in one of these periods. and I'd like to talk about two subjects related to that, the election of a new President in Spain and the latest judicial verdicts and actions by the UE tribunals and parliament.
First, it seems finally a President has been elected in Spain. This President has been very difficult to elect, since the party he belongs to didn't have enough representatives in parliament to be elected on their own. This means the party needed to pact with others, and traditional parties in Spain are really against that. They're used to order around and dictate, starting from a clean majority, if possible an absolute one, to rule whatever they want, regardless of the program they had. This party, PSOE, is no different.
PSOE has been defended during this period as a leftist party, and the election of this president has been indicated as a triumph for progressive forces. However, this is totally false. For a long time now, all around the world, powerful forces (aka rich people and the newspapers and news agencies/broadcasters they buy) have been moving what is considered the centre of the political spectrum more and more to the right, to accept certain policies as "moderate" when they're clearly right-wing and conservative, and to promote neo-liberal economies. Because of this, PSOE is being considered as "left", but that's blatantly false (at national level at least. it´s different at regional or city levels).
PSOE has accepted authoritarian ways to rule, has maintained laws that restrict freedom of speech and has used repression as a tool while governing temporarily in this period without majorities. PSOE also reformed labour laws in Spain in favour of the big companies, have delayed retirement age and all around applied neo-liberal policies for some time now, refusing to act on things like house prices or bank control. PSOE has refused boats full of rescued refugees that were at sea. PSOE has done nothing to tax more or stop giving public money to the Catholic Church. Their attitude till now regarding Catalunya has been exactly the same as PP, the extreme-right wing party of Spain, of sending police and tribunals and twisting legislation to punish people. And so on.
The only thing that PSOE has done that can be considered more "leftist" has been defending abortion rights, defending LGBT+ rights and Women's rights, and proposing to legislate on issues like Euthanasia or drug use. While these are noble causes, these alone do not define a leftist party, and plenty of moderate or right parties in Europe nowadays defend some of these positions too, so it's not like revolutionary radical leftist of them.
What's more, PSOE had the chance of ruling with a true centre-left party, Podemos, since last elections, but because they're centre-right they wanted instead to pact with Ciudadanos (another right-wing party) or rule alone, which is why they repeated elections. Problem is they lost votes and Ciudadanos sank even more, so these two options were definitely not possible and they were forced to pact with Podemos instead and, all of a sudden, defend themselves as "progressives" when they're far from that.
Having said that, this is better than the alternative. The alternative was the three extreme-right-wing parties of Spain (yes, we have three of them, we don't have a "new extreme right wing" now, we always had it, it´s just now split in pieces and that's good) ruling together, but thankfully they have been fragmented and don't have a majority to rule even if they pact. PSOE alone will not do much, but since it will have issues governing, the fact that they need to pact and negotiate is a good thing. We will see if Podemos and the other leftist parties can twist its arm enough for them to actually act and do some progressive things.
There´s people in Catalunya that say that PSOE is the same as PP, and to let them rule is bad. This reminds me on the campaign started in USA to convince progressive voters not to go to vote Hilary using targeted ads, that infamous scandal. While I agree that PSOE is not good, the reality is that the possibility of the extreme right parties ruling again is catastrophic. I´m not sure whats the best course of action really, but seems to me a scenario where they need to pact with left and independentist parties is better than one where all right-wing parties ally themselves and rule.
However, as a final note: This government won't push leftist policies enough and will still pretty much protect the powerful. If you want real change, PSOE is not the party, you need to vote more left. There's several options there (which is a problem, when there's this fragmentation too), but there are better left options. It's a matter of selecting one. And yes, they're not perfect. The curse of the left is that there's no perfect ruler, instead of the right where this doesn't matter because you just obey your leader. But still, vote the best left option that there is, or change is impossible.
As per the second topic: The UE tribunals have ruled that three Catalan politicians that could not swear on the Spanish consititution because they were in exile or in prison are members of UE parliament, regardless of the fact that they could not swear on it becasue members are elected by people voting, not by posterior procedures, and therefore the Spanish tribunals cannot prosecute them without the approval of the UE parliament. Two of them are exiled and will join the parliament on 13th of January, and the third one is in prison in Spain, but this verdict makes his trial void (and would need, legally, to be repeated after UE parliament allows it).
This has been followed by the UE parliament ordering Spain to fulfil the law (indicating without explicitly saying that they need to liberate the prisoner), since the UE Tribunal is the highest instance and the Spanish tribunals need to follow it.
This links nicely with my previous post. The problem of how Spain reacted to the Catalan independentists is that it's not legal, it's not democratic, and in general it's not how a progressive democratic country works. Spain has acted like a dictatorship, has twisted laws, bypassed rules, done whatever they wanted however they wanted it, ignoring their own legislation and just going for punishment, revenge and blood. Anyone defending that doesn't understand about democracy, regardless of your opinion on independence, and that's something that I really hope that those who do not defend independence understand, finally, with he help of Europe: Every Single Time that Europe tribunals have been involved, since they're really independent and democratic, Spain has been shown to not follow the law and to act incorrectly. Every time. And there's more to come, once other sentences reach UE tribunals too.
What's more: For all the ones that say they defend legality: As per the law, this prisoner should be freed and given access to UE parliament. I'm not going to say all laws are just, because I've previously stated that you should always question them, because dictatorships also have laws. But if you're not hypocrites, now you should defend his liberation, and ask Spain to follow the law. Or ask for the Spanish Government and the Spanish Tribunals to be accused and judged, same way you asked for the Catalan politicians to be judged.
Or you truly, really, believe that Spain is a better democracy with a better judicial system than all the other UE nations combined?
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