In the hands of a lesser god
This last chronicle of the year begins with an acknowledgement of solidarity with those who are absent. In 2020, more than 70,000 people have fallen victim to the pandemic. Only a marble slab in the Casa de Correos in Madrid, nearly beneath the Clock that marks our minutes, remembers the health heroes who gave their lives and their thousands of patients who died without comfort in hospitals, households and nursing homes. The premeditated concealment of coffins in morgues and ice palaces corroborates that the primary objective of this, and all European governments, was and is to hide the truth. This is the year of the 500 lies produced at the Moncloa Factory; the year of the 1,000 electoral failures - that contract with the sovereign people that was left on waste paper - and the year of the mass unemployment, of uncontrolled immigration, of the hunger queues, of the ERTES. A year with the worst executive in Spain and that of the worst opposition. The EU has come to the economic rescue (with debts up to 2040) and the Brexit has taught us we have made a historic mistake; our lorry drivers have been a bargaining chip on both sides of the Eurotunnel while the last fisheries chapter was being negotiated and neither the Red Cross nor the Foreign Ministry came to the rescue. All the breakdowns and especially London-Brussels have failed.
This week and this 'annus horribilis' are closing with fear and uncertainty, the two most dangerous ingredients for prosperity. On the one hand, unemployment is growing exponentially after the closure of hotels and restaurants, bars, cinemas, theatres, football without spectators, airlines, agencies of all kinds, sale of new and used flats, SMEs without credit and uncontrolled immigration that threatens the integrity of the Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla. Andalusian children are praying that in the new negotiations between Madrid and Gibraltar we do not lose Andalusia. On the other hand, the lack of foreign investment confirms that Spain's current debt makes it unreliable for investment. Tourism has died. One third of our GDP is in debt. And the ECB is already demanding structural changes from us: from pensions to public spending. What a great time to cut current spending by reducing ministries and senior officials! Austerity does not work in this government. And ethics even less so. And without ethics and austerity, as President Adolfo Suárez taught us, the principle of equal opportunities will generate more injustices. We are coming out of the worst year of our lives and we are not entering the new one either stronger or more
Ángel Benito, a professor and sage of communication, has just left. As he explained in his first classes at the Faculty of Communication Sciences, "a country is all the more imperfect the more it is kept silent". That is what we now call transparency. A few hours ago we met the government's panel of experts advising it on political decisions against COVID-19. All but one of them were officials from the Health Ministry. The remaining one, a collaborator from the Spanish newspaper EL PAIS. Wouldn't it have been better to create a committee of Spanish experts to work here and beyond our borders, setting up the Ramón y Cajal Institute, in the image of Louis Pasteur in France or Robert Koch in Germany? Strong and independent institutions. After meeting the team of senior officials we need to know the written reports after the working sessions, if any. If Salvador Illa was the supreme pontiff and Fernando Simón his altar boy, we can understand the chaos we have suffered since March of this endless year and how, with a state of alarm, of siege and of war, we are still at the head of the highest number of deaths (80,000) in relation to the population and also the highest number of infected health personnel, 93,000 people with 120 professionals dead including doctors, nurses and pharmacists. We will always be indebted to them and their families. When will we know where Delcy Rodríguez bags went after her meeting with Ábalos in Barajas? And the cost of the pandemic with contracts to friends of the Socialists' Party of Catalonia (PSC)?
President Sánchez review of the administration of the year, which was endorsed by a group of social-communist friends, was nonsense: President Sánchez review of the administration of the year, which was endorsed by a group of social-communist friends, was nonsense: Exposing three strong ideas is what he calls accountability: "The coalition with Podemos will last for the whole term", "The pardon for the coup leaders of October 1st is on the road map because we have all made mistakes in Catalonia". What were your mistakes, Mr President? Isn't it illegal to pardon seditious people who also threaten to do so again? And finally: "Spanish language and concerted education have been mortally wounded by the Celáa law". Victimization is just propaganda. Minutes after the triumphalist monologue, the Council of Ministers approved the Institutional Promotion Plan (understood to be propaganda) with a budget of 112 million euros until 2025, 100 million of which will go to private generalist television stations. (We do not know if it will include the signing of vaccines by Sánchez himself at the headquarters of El Corte Inglés, because as his deputies have already repeated - another lie - the vaccines against COVID-19 "are paid for by the government"). The opposition deputies in the Madrid region (Gabilondo and Serra) should compare this expenditure with the investment in the new Zendal Hospital, which amounted to 100 million.
We already announced here weeks ago that the approval of the State Budget 2021 guarantees the continuity of this social-communist government until the next decade. With the same support of the investiture, let us not forget. That is, with coup leaders, pro-independence supporters from PNV party and philo-ETA terrorists. The president has promised lots of green industry, lots of digitalization, environmentalism and gender diversity. He should speak to the new unemployed of the ERTES, to the owners of squatted premises, to those affected by bank mergers, to the future pensioners who will be paid with an average of 25 to 38 years of contributions, and to the 86,000 bars that will not be able to open tomorrow!
In short, a sermon from La Moncloa, a balance sheet with almost 25 percent of commitments fulfilled that does not include a single one of his broken promises in the election campaign: "I will not govern with Bildu, I tell you that 5 or 20 times" "I could not sleep if I made a pact with Pablo Iglesias". And the most immoral one: "I learned from my father that one must always keep one's word!" And, furthermore, supporting disgraceful Zapatero in his mission of cooperation with Maduro and the foreign policy of Unidas Podemos party.
When the President acknowledges COVID-19's 80,000 deaths and submits his PhD thesis to independent expert analysis, we will believe in this providential man, our lesser god. But he will be the last lesser god on whom our lives and finances depend.
The head of government spoke of political regeneration after making a pact with Bildu and including it as a priority partner of the State (Iglesias dixit), corruption in the Provincial Council in the hands of the PSC-Puigdemont and the Andalusian ERES; pure cynicism. What about the in-born corruption of Podemos party? Does he also support it? Undoubtedly, he does.
Without having submitted a single report to Brussels, Pedro Sánchez has already begun to distribute European funds with full force. Making life more Hispanic, a waste of money. Catalonia is already benefiting from Madrid. Because in the absence of popular opposition, Isabel Díaz Ayuso is the new gull to beat. But she flies with her management and her Zendal Hospital too high. The year arrived with many taxes for the same old people. The Machiavellian calculation made by the President has worked out well. Minister Salvador Illa will be the candidate for the Catalonian General Government, as envisaged before the pandemic. Now, the fireproof Miquel Iceta will finally be minister. Of what? Never mind. It is likely that he will be head of the Territorial Policy and Public Administration Department, headed by Carolina Darias, known for having been infected by COVID-19 on 8 March for attending the Women's Day demonstration in Madrid - "because her life depended on it".
Iceta and Illa have already assured that there will be no tripartite with Unidas Podemos party (UP); they are lying. Justice Minister J.A. Campo is already negotiating the reform of the Penal Code to "get Junqueras and his seditious acolytes out of Lledoners", reducing the penalties. As the Spanish President, Emiliano García-Page, has said, "it would be a mistake for the government to prove that the seditious are once again committing crimes as they have threatened to do from prison". He will blame those of us who have not been able to understand his "dialogue" for "undoing" everyone's mistakes, putting those who want to comply with the law on an equal footing with those who are convicted and confessed criminals.
There would still be an unconstitutional amnesty that the Executive would face (and cover up) with the reform of the Head of State to "modernise and neutralise King Philip VI". The Catalonian campaign began with Puigdemont as the star, with Lorena Roldán as a defector from Ciudadanos to the PP. New year, election campaign. Propaganda until next spring.
The approval of the General State Budget (PGE acronym in Spanish) and of the Celáa law, gives undeserved stability to a government that rules without control in the Parliament and with enabling laws in the Official State Bulletin (BOE) or that of Euthanasia, transgender, surrogacy, etc... Why did you demand and get that alarm law until May if you do not take any responsibility in difficult times? Examples: immigration, tourism, the Canary Islands, Ceuta, Melilla, the Sahara, Gibraltar, Venezuela... The refusal of political asylum to Luis Armando Pérez, brother of the policeman executed by Maduro, condemns him to death. Good for Minister Marlaska. As Interior Minister, he already holds a record: tributes to ETA have increased fivefold in this year of such pain. It is not surprising that, in the presence of the king, the minister was not applauded at the last meeting with the Victims of Terrorism.
By the way, the Monarch was more nervous than usual in his Christmas message. But he made his convictions clear: "The Constitution is the way"; "ethical principles oblige us all above family considerations". The best part of the speech was dedicated to the victims of the COVID-19. "Protecting the vulnerable and recovering the economy". We saw him very close to the people.
Neither at Christmas dinner nor at New Year's dinner will we talk about the alternative between Monarchy and Republic. There is no such a dilemma. The Constitution and the Monarchy represent freedom. 42 years of living together. The Republic in Spain is a dictatorship. The monarchy is the big game to be beaten.
2021 could not be worse than the previous one. Pedro Sánchez sailed between the Crown and the pardons to support himself. He walked on the razor's edge, but without changing his partners, although he would soon have to reshuffle the government. And he will blackmail the opposition and the people throughout this year with more than 5 million unemployed to continue with extraordinary powers, even though he does not know what to do with them. One thing is clear: propaganda and indoctrination have no limits. And they will be his best weapons for the future.
It is going to be very difficult for us to escape from hope, although the vaccine has already arrived. And we run the risk that the peace of the new normal will break out. The fire of indignation is not yet burning hot enough. God bless us in this new year; we must know how to dream properly, not in excess.
Whether we like it or not, we are in the hands of the Secretary General of the PSOE, Pedro Sánchez, who has managed to impose his will on the PSC, a party as corrupt as Pujol's. A lesser god who is the new Nero of our time, although he is unaware of the dammed social pain, which my admired Lucía Méndez wrote. The socialist leader was in pain because he does not reach agreements with the PP party - he only wants the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ in Spanish) to be renewed in order to control the justice system, but he does not tell he took 50 days to get Pablo Casado on the phone. On the day of the Magna Carta they did not even greet each other. The opposition is deaf and dumb, and Pedro Sánchez, our great lesser god, is not exactly William Hurt.