Winds of the people

1. The cold drop 
2. With feet of clay 
3. Chronology of a trap 
4. The violent left 
5. Resignations in all directions 
6. National Hydrological Plan 
7. Assault on TVE 

The Kings with the people, walking on the stubble of the dead in Paiporta. Accompanying the people abandoned and desperate by the politicians when they needed hugs, affection and dialogue. 225 dead and 50 missing. 

[A hard slap, an icy blow, an invisible and homicidal axe, a brutal push has knocked you down.] 

Trump is back and Sánchez remains... on the run. These two last two heroes united by vengeance, contempt and hatred accumulated to command without limits, will dispose of our lives and estates without counterpowers. The absolute masters of our time. Socialism ‘woke’ is going backwards. 

Donald and Pedro are the authoritarian sides of the same coin that will freeze our souls, hearts and wallets for the next thousand days. Let us share the pain and hope with communal rebellion until we are called to the polls. What have we Americans and Spaniards done to deserve this? Vote them out too much. 

I didn't, but there are those who did. And while Begoña's husband drove around in a car decked out in flowers in the Bollywood of India, the god of rain wept desperately over Valencia. 

[The oxen never thrived on the moors of Spain]. 

The cold drop 

DANA (Depresión Aislada en Niveles Altos), the cold drop of a lifetime, has taken almost two hundred and thirty lives. The human, economic and social tragedy is so great that it hardly matters any more. 

The central and regional governments arrived too late. It will take at least a decade to build normality, with new horizons, and some 100,000 million in aid, if the technicians of the Júcar and Segura Confederations, who have been demanding structural reforms to minimise these uncontrollable floods as far as possible, are not ignored once again. 800,000 affected. 52,000 homes destroyed. 

Only the people, neighbours, volunteers and some mayors did their duty to offer urgent help to those most in need. Solidarity is in our DNA. The people saved the people, together with King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia. 

Last Tuesday we proved that Spain is a nation and a state. The Sánchez government failed, interested in sinking the Valencian government politically. ‘This is our opportunity’, noted the Minister for Equality, Ana María Carmen Redondo, in her ‘Moleskine‘ of work. And the Generalitat failed. 

[There is no greater extension than my wound, I mourn my misfortune and its sets and I feel your death more than my life]. 

Carlos Mazón, will have to explain that ‘business lunch’ on the 29th that prevented him from joining the crisis committee until after seven in the evening. And next Thursday he has an appointment in Parliament. His future depends on his transparency. 

The third vice-president, Teresa Ribera, absent for nine days and five hundred nights, showed up unannounced at her house in SER to, in 13 minutes of interview-massage, accuse Mazón without a single word of solidarity with the victims. Not a single expression of consolation. Another Bacigalupa consort pata negra. 

The head of the Meteorology department has not even deigned to visit the victims or offer her condolences to their families. Many have lost everything. 

Her official diary was empty for more than a week. We do not know with whom she had lunch on that historic day or the following ones; she is preparing her exam for European commissioner - a lifetime canon - by showing, like Calviño, that she is in favour of supporting nuclear energy in her future mandate in order to get France's vote. 

Meanwhile, in our country this clean energy, according to the EU, is sentenced to death, to continue depending more on Putin. Let's hope that the PP will vote against candidate Ribera as the PSOE did with Miguel Arias Cañete 10 years ago when he ran for Energy Commissioner. 

Here, in parallel, the Moncloa is covering up the closure of the Almaraz nuclear power plant in Cáceres when for the development of AI we will have to multiply by six our energy capacity before 2030. 

Don Pedro ‘I'm fine’, once again absent from the Control al Gobierno in the Congress of Deputies. He has been absent from the Senate for months. He will be at the Climate Summit in Azerbaijan, establishing doctrine against the ‘deniers’ and the extreme right. The far right is to blame for this damned DANA. Like the one in 1957 in Franco's Valencia that devastated the river Turia and caused 300 deaths. 

Mr. President, do not talk to us about governance or try to deceive us as you did in the COVID-19 pandemic, when you admitted its seriousness and unconstitutionally confined us the day after 8-M so that Begoña and her purple friends could celebrate the Day of the Empowered Woman. 

What has to happen for LA Moncloa to declare a level 3 maximum alert and mobilise all the resources available to the State? A nuclear attack from North Korea? An explosion in Vandellós III? An uprising in Madrid like on May 2, 1808? How many provinces must be affected by the devastation? The irresponsibility of this president has no beginning and no end. He is an Archimedean screw to bail out water. It is always the fault of others. 

As a social democrat reconverted to plurinational communism, this guy without empathy will go down in history as the fugitive who always runs away or dodges in difficult times. Sometimes he needs five more days to reflect that he will go on... until eternity. And beyond. 

The phrase ‘if they need resources, let them ask for them’ will be in his political testament. And in his tomb, even if his ashes are scattered by his relatives with roses in the sea.  You have to have bad faith, little empathy and be a bad person not to send the Land, Sea, Air and Space Armies in the first minute. And, moreover, blackmailing the PP with the General Budget/25. 

Margarita Robles was what she is: a civil servant with the soul of a slave, always serving her feudal lord. What a generous predisposition when the floods in Libya and the earthquakes in Turkey and Morocco happened! Military and logistical aid was ready within 24 hours. 

But, of course, Ambassador Puig, who drafted a law to prevent infrastructure improvements to alleviate the torrential rains in the area, was not in charge in Valencia. No, Levante liquidated the progressive government on 28 March 23. 

In the Interior, the cynical Marlaska rejected French aid of 250 firefighters specialised in rescues. ‘We don't need anything’, the minister replied to his French counterpart. Ukraine, Argentina and El Salvador were not even thanked for the gesture. 

Eleven days later, he has asked the European Union for urgent reinforcements given the magnitude of this sea of boards, reeds, walls of scrap metal and mud. A lot of mud. A government mired in misery. 

Reconnaissance planes and drones confirm that the 52,000 hectares that have been flooded are part of the prelude to hell. This explains the anger and despair of those affected and even the booing of the authorities. Because of the deliberate political inaction of this social-communist government, no one lifted a finger during the first 100 hours. Unforgivable. Our Yoli opened her mouth to speak of a ‘pandemic’. 

We remember her axiom of jurisconsult: ‘We must adapt the weather conditions to the workplaces’. Start in Valencia. Im-presentable. Volunteers came from all the cardinal points of real Spain. 

[Asturians of bravery, Basques of armoured stone, Valencians of joy and Castilians of soul.] 

Thank goodness the UME was there the day after. 

The press conferences from Moncloa by the commander-in-chief of the Military Emergency Unit were a tragala like those of Fernando Simón in the ‘report’ of the pandemic without experts. 

Sánchez always takes refuge in the military, as he did in COVID-19 when the head of the Guardia Civil claimed that the mission of the Benemérita was to monitor and defend the government's image in the eyes of public opinion. He was promoted to the Spanish Embassy in Washington.

With feet of clay 

Why didn't the AEMET detect, as the French Meteorological Agency did, that the DANA was exceptional and that the flow could exceed three times that of the Ebro? 

The closest thing to the truth is that Don Pedro's parliamentary partners, (communists, separatists, philo-terrorists and coup-mongers) cannot stand the army working side by side with the people helping the most vulnerable and proudly displaying the Spanish flag on their uniforms. Sánchez crumpled. Again. 

Like Zapatero, the patriotism of Don P. Sánchez Pérez-Castejón is a tin patriotism. No empathy, no humanity. Only his attachment to power is his strength. He depends on all his fellow travellers to nowhere. 

Recall that when he was on holiday in Lanzarote he was unable to visit a refugee centre. He did, however, entertain Zapatero and Illa. Three guys, each more dangerous than the next. The immigration problem is still bogged down there just to mistreat the Canary-Popular government. 

This guy is not a leader; he is an irresponsible opportunist. Sánchez has never been heard publicly apologising for his political sins and for his permanent lies. He does not possess even one of the seven ‘Cs’ of political hyper-leadership: ‘Coherence, conviction, credibility, confidence, communication, commitment and conscience’. Sánchez is Sánchez. 

This president neither inspires nor influences, persuades nor guides individuals: he only insults and corrupts them through his Sanchist dogmatism. He demands loyalty to the death while he sharpens the guillotine of indifference. He hardly ‘knows’ Ábalos. Nobody has made more political profit out of polarisation with his wall of shame than Sánchez. 

This is an administration with feet of clay. Perhaps for a few days, the tenant of the Moncloa has forgotten about his heavy backpack of corruption: Begoña, David, Alvarone, Koldo, Ábalos, Aldama, Tito Berni, Delcy or the implications of Óscar Sánchez Gil, head of anti-money laundering in the National Police and arrested a few hours ago in Madrid for his relationship with Ecuadorian drug trafficking. They have seized 13 tons of cocaine and 20 million hidden in the walls of his house and 1 million more from his partner, also a policeman. 

Minister Marlaska must explain the rubbish in his ministry.  The slime and hoaxes stink all over the department, splashing such noble institutions as the Guardia Civil and the National Police. Corruption is back. Evil sown at random always germinates. 

Chronology of a trap 

We now know that twelve hours before the DANA mercilessly descended on the Valencian Community and Castilla-La Mancha, National Security warned Moncloa of the seriousness of the situation. Montero chaired a crisis committee. Who was informed? No one. 

The Prime Minister's urgent visit to Valencia to give Mazón the ‘bear hug’ served to foist the hot potato of the collective tragedy on the former Eurovision singer. Why did the Valencian president accept this co-responsibility, which exceeded his powers? Because of the bad conscience of the hours he lost on the day of the car with his journalist of choice. 

The fact that the Secretary of State, Hugo Morán, called from Cali (Colombia) to announce to the Minister of the Interior that there was concern about the possible bursting of the Forata dam, overshadowed the real danger of the Poyo ravine. 

At the crisis meeting held in Valencia between the government delegate, members of the Generalitat, the UME and the river basins that drain into the Mediterranean, no one was aware of the danger. 

The email from the Júcar Confederation explained tersely, ‘to whom it may concern’, that the flooding of the ravine and the river Magro was increasing. After 20:10 the maximum alert was ordered when the rivers and more than 20 villages were already flooded; and the number of victims exceeded fifty. Forata retained 37 billion litres of water. A rupture would have meant the apocalypse. 

Nine days after the tragedy, Salomé Pradas, the Generalitat's Minister for Emergencies, confirmed that she was unaware until the afternoon of the DANA that alerts could be sent to mobile phones. My God, what hands we are in! 

Radio and television have allowed us to share the tragedies as closely as if we had been live in that endless war. We have cried with the Valencians, the people of Castilla-La Mancha, the Andalusians and the Catalans because we are proud to be Spanish. 

The visit of the King and Queen to Paiporta, we insist, has reconciled us with solidarity, with the people, with the Nation and with the State. When Felipe VI and Queen Letizia approached the people to listen to the anger and pain of citizens abandoned by the national and regional governments, we understood that dialogue is the most powerful missile to understand each other and to continue together in unity. [Andalusians of lightning, born among guitars, Extremadurians of rye, Galicians of rain and calm]. 

President Sánchez's flight contrasts with Adolfo Suárez's bravery on the evening of 23-F/81 when Tejero shot at the roof of Congress and the president remained impassive in his seat. Years later he confessed to me in a CDS election campaign that ‘he was prepared for an attempt to be made on his life’. He always refused to use that powerful image to his electoral advantage. He was a statesman. 

Pedro Sánchez ‘I'm fine’ assured while announcing the first rapid support measures (10.6 billion) that those who attacked his armoured car were orchestrated right-wing extremist elements. A hoax like the ‘navajita plateá’ of the ex-minister Reyes Maroto or the bullets of the Civil War to Marlaska and Pablo Iglesias. Archived hoaxes. 

The Public Prosecutor's Office has asked the National High Court that the three arrested and released for allegedly assaulting the authorities be charged with little more or less than ‘attempted assassination’. What the cameras repeatedly record is that someone throws a broomstick that grazes a photographer. His flight, at the request of his bodyguards, contrasts with the same advice to the King and Queen, who remained in the street with their people. 

Surprisingly, the Attorney General's Office has not taken any initiative to find out who threw mud at the monarchs. The Royal Court has opposed the investigation of the indignados. 

[Catalans of firmness, Aragonese of caste, Murcians of fruitfully propagated dynamite, Leonese, Navarrese, masters of hunger, sweat and axe]. 

The violent left 

The Valencian left and extreme left, still with the dead unburied, took to the streets of the city of the Turia this Saturday to protest against Carlos Mazón's mismanagement of the DANA at the end of October. They were right. The slogan was clear: Mazón resign! Some 100,000 people, according to the Government Delegation, occupied the city centre and tried to burn down the City Hall gate, which was damaged. 

The Catalan annexationist left and Compromìs cadres were the most violent ‘muchachada’. ‘We'll sweep Mazón like mud!’ they chanted with ferocity and hatred while banners commissioned by professional agitators read: ’We're not all here, the people you have drowned are missing!’ The PSOE's response was not long in coming: a motion of censure in Requena against the PP with the dead still present. 

Resignations in all directions 

Spain's greatest natural disaster has only just begun. The DANA has opened a wound that is difficult to heal. The lack of coordination between administrations has made this chaos possible. We have learned nothing from the pandemic, from Filomena, from the flooding of the Ebro and the Guadalquivir, and even less from the volcano on La Palma or the flooding in the Balearic Islands and Catalonia. 

There will be time to demand accountability. And for resignations or dismissals to take place in all directions. The urgent thing is to clear the streets, open schools, restaurants and businesses, but first, rebuild road infrastructures, electricity, water, gas, telephone, internet and provide shelter and food for all those who have lost their homes. The DANA 24 Plan cannot leave any citizen in the lurch. 

The left has taken advantage of this tragedy to win the street because Trump's victory is too long. As I said a fortnight ago, the EU, NATO, Ukraine and especially Spain will be the countries most harmed by Trumpism. It is time to wake up and pay, euro for euro, for common Security and Defence. Freedom and democracy are never free. 

National Hydrological Plan 

The images of war that we have seen on television and mobile phones will mark us for many years to come. Heroism makes us greater as human beings. Surviving the loss of loved ones and the material belongings of a lifetime will require individual and collective therapy.  Nothing will ever be the same again because most of the memories have been washed away. But we have to start again. 

Emiliano García Page, after recovering and mourning his five dead in Letur (Albacete), has called for the creation of a National Independent Authority to manage all future crises and humanitarian catastrophes when the asphalt is once again laid in the affected villages. 

I recall that a similar body was already announced to coordinate Public Health in the event of pandemics. It was never heard of again. The idea is laudable, but ineffective. To think that this body is going to command the UME, the Armed Forces, the Police and the Guardia Civil is not something that Marlasca or Robles would subscribe to. 

It would be desirable for PSOE and PP to urgently agree in Parliament on a National Hydrological Plan to clean up the rivers, build dams and reservoirs to prevent flooding, as the Sumerians did in the 4th century BC. 

This Pact would be impossible with Dr Sánchez on the bridge because he intends to ‘federalise’ even the Tax Agency and, if they let him, decentralise the Armed Forces and split Spain into a dozen Bolivarian republics. The plurinational Spain of our leader would resemble the Kingdoms of Taifas. 

[Twilight of the oxen is awakening the dawn]. 

Assault on TVE 

I end with a piece of information that should be written in the General History of Infamy. On the 29th, the Congress, at the initiative of the PP, considered that given the magnitude of the catastrophe caused by the cold drop - there were already half a hundred dead - the session of the control of the Executive should be suspended with a battery of questions about the corruption that splashes the Moncloa. 

The PSOE, annoyed that the political score was being scored by the Popular Party, accepted the proposal and the day's proceedings came to an end, as was done in the rest of the regional parliaments and city councils. A minute's silence was observed. But... the wickedness of the PSOE never rests. 

The president himself from India had ordered a vote for the 11 political commissioners of the new RTVE board of directors. President Francina Armengol, following the direct instructions of the plenipotentiary Bolaños, urgently convened the Board of Spokespersons, with a Frankenstein majority, and an hour later called an ‘extraordinary plenary session’ with a single item on the agenda: ‘Appointment of the 11 members of the Board of Directors of RTV Pública’. 

And so it was done, after the representative of Sumar publicly announced that ‘the deputies are not there to clean the streets of mud and slime’. Patxi López sentenced: ‘We are here to draft laws’. PP, VOX and UPN left the chamber. Out of dignity. 

Will the Valencian socialists explain to their countrymen, forgotten and abandoned to their fate, that it was more important to vote for the assault on RTVE than to respect their pain, that of the dead and the victims? And the 8 socialists from Castilla-La Mancha? And how will the Andalusian socialists tell their electors and their countrymen about this feat of indignity? Voting commissars with dozens of innocent dead, drowned in the political mire. 

Horror, hell, impotence, pillage, fear... A lot of fear.  All the pain in the world belongs to those affected by this criminal DANA that has taught us something important: that we are Spanish, a united people, with a youth committed to solidarity, a nation of free and equal citizens. 

We have discovered, as on 3 October 2017, that we have a constitutional Monarchy and a Magna Carta that will outlive all incompetent and coup-plotting governments. [Winds of the people carry me, winds of the people sweep me away, scatter my heart and winnow my throat]. 

Note: To better understand the tragedy of the DANA it would be desirable to read the poems ‘Vientos del pueblo’ and ‘Elegía a Ramón Sijé’, by Miguel Hernández (Orihuela, 1910-1942) Miguel lives.