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The column.
Gabriel Puyo
Op-Ed Columnist.
Welcome to this section where you will be able to find the different columns that I will upload regularly on very actual and present topics regarding various fields: politics, sports, arts, science. Thanks in advance. Because I believe, we always should take sides. This is the place, this is the moment. And you, what do you think?
ZAPATERO, SPANISH PRIME MINISTER OF SPAIN. DIALOGUES WITH ETA.
This is Spain, the country in which more than 11 million people voted the present president for the second time. Zapatero arrived at Moncloa in 2004 after the Madrid bombings, during the terrible date of 11th of March.
With Zapatero as a prime minister, Spain has suffered the worst regression in its history of a democratic nation. In every single area: economic, social, political, institutional...
More than 20% of the people who live in Spain is unemployed. Zapatero's political tactics is very simple: presenting a positive and optimistic view on the state of the country. There is nothing to be worried about: the economy will come back to normal sooner than later, Spain is a great country that should not be worried. He is there, to protect the citizens and provide comfort to the society.
However, never before Spain suffered from a crisis of these dimensions: unemployment, sectarian and radical politics, lack of freedom, manipulation of Country's departments of Justice, trade unions subsidized and controlled by the government along with the media and main newspapers and televisions, a foreign politics based in the comradeship of dictators such as Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro and others like Evo Morales or Rafael Correa, the different police departments working in the benefit of the government...
There are just 18 months left before the next general elections in Spain. And the strategy to keep the power by Zapatero is very simple: talk to the assassins of ETA. He believes that, offering the dissolution of this terrorist organization that have murdered more than 1000 innocents, he will be reelected despite the enormous crisis, poverty, and disintegration of Spain as a country, as a culture and as a united country.
It is simply miserable, dishonest, coward, and a complete betrayal to get into negotiations with a band of terrorists. Zapatero, however does not have any scruples, any sense of honour, respect to those who died defending a just cause or principles in order to stop these talkings with the terrorists. In his mind there is just one goal: to remain in the power, at all costs. No means are discarded specially the ones that have let him be at the Moncloa's office: lies, manipulation of the Country departments, treacheries...
It is said that a country has the politicians that it deserves. That's right. More than 11 million people believed in Zapatero for second time, despite his lies, incompetency, radical politics and sectarian measures.
In 18 months, Spain will have another opportunity to express themselves. There will be unemployment, a cracked society by a Socialist party that has broken the country in halves, no future nor prospects for the young and the old, a country hit by the worst president of the democratic history of Spain.
Once more, Spanish will define themselves. For now, they just became accomplices and allies of Zapatero.
Zagreb, 2nd of November of 2010.
The Progressives.
"Do as I say not as I do" could be a perfect definition on what being a progressive means. They always are in possession of the truth, the only truth. There cannot be any other option. The rest of the people, those who disagree, are consequently wrong. Their words are close to the poor, to those whose lives are painful and miserable. Their actions, totally opposite to their words: actions prone to spend on expensive things, obsessed with leading a lifestyle of luxuries and and expensive brands.
Progressives fill their mouths with big principles and carry out actions of cowardice and hypocrisy. It is necessary to help the poor but they spend thousands of Euros or Dollars on trendy clothing, everlasting nights going out. They condemn capitalism but keep silent on socialist or communist dictatorships. For them, all the issues have a very simple solution: expending and expending money. It does not matter if eventually that money has to be returned because they will have not to do it. Others will come to do it. They are the saviors, the avant - garde. The world will always be in debt with them.
The progressives talk, others have to act. They just spend, others have to save. Progressives cultivate propaganda, with the majority of the media. They are entitled to control it because they deserve it. After all, they will never be recognized enough.
Thus, there is a terrible paradox: the progressive becomes the antonym of progress. They are just words, pretences, smoke, a petty mirage...
However facts are stubborn: looking at the countries where progressive governments lead the country, we can observe bankruptcy, cracks in the democratic system, regression in relation to liberties, less jobs, less opportunities and prospects for everyone: Spain, Portugal, Greece, Ireland...
Visa Gold credit cards, luxurious houses, expensive brands and a obsession for the image and the material things are the pillars of the progressives.
"Do as I say, not as I do", defines them with thoroughness. The dictatorship of the masses is all around, the tyranny is set... in the meantime, the poor are poorer, and the rich, richer.
Zagreb, 12-11-2010.
The Zapatero's legacy. General elections 11-20-2011
Year 2008. 3-9. Zapatero's prime minister after interview on one of the many governmental TV's off the record:
-Interviewer: How are the polls?
-Zapatero: Well. It is convenient for us to have tension on the campaign.
This is one of the many sides of this character and all of them filled with despicable tinges of radicalism, extremism, incompetency, unprofessionalism and sectarian ignorance. I hope for the sake of my country that it will pass a long time to have someone like him on the Moncloa's office. It's been almost eight years of his presidency. I already warned what was going to happen at the time of the last general election if this person would be elected again. It was on March the 9th of 2008. Well, 11 million people voted again on him. The outcome of this decision has been clear: Spain is about to be taken over by the European Union. There is a 21% of unemployment ratio. The whole nation is divided and disintegrated with many parts of the country that rivals one another fiercely instead of working together for the same cause.
It is though what Zapatero has been doing with a total proficiency: making Spaniards enemies to each others. Instead uniting them, make them fight. Instead of advocating for a sole country walking together, battling and making sides: the good ones, his and the enemies, the opposition followers.
Zapatero has never hesitated on his purpose. He needed all the support from all the radical sectors of the country. With him, any means justifies the cause. At any cost, even if this cost is poverty, disaggregation, humiliation, loss of respect and consideration as a country to quote just a few factors. He even betrayed those victims whose lives built the main pillars that any country has to be settle on: Memory, Dignity and Justice.
He is not going to run for presidency this time. How could if he ruined all the things that he touched? Time always places everyone on his place. What is the Zapatero's legacy? The answer is heartbreaking: 44 % of unemployment for people between 22 and 40 years old. The country is paying huge amounts of interests because of the large debts that Zapatero created. At this time, Spain is a broken country. Democracy barely still survives with judges, media, public prosecutors and police departments working for the benefit of him and his political party.
On November the 20th there are General Elections again. Spain needs a change, or better an agreement between the two big parties to get a consensus in order to work for Spain as a country, for the main interest of it, not just for a few sectarian regions occupied on growing with the investments that should be distributed among all the regions according to one of the major principles: general interest.
I wrote almost 4 years ago that voting for Zapatero was the same as voting for poverty, sectarian principles, incompetency, radicalism and bankruptcy. Time sadly proved me right. Now I say that voting for PSOE is the same as before. It is proof that Socialism brings just that: poverty, unemployment and division.
The same as just a few main characteristics of Zapatero's legacy.
Rajoy, leading Spaniards to the cruelest poverty to maintain the politicians privileges.
In November of 2011 Spaniards chose in their general elections a change in the Moncloa's office. It passed more than seven years with Zapatero as a president to leave the country in bankruptcy. Families, business, international image, official organisms of the state got deteriorated in every single level due to his lack of competency and preparedness to be able to lead a country in the way to prosperity. The outcome of these General Elections was clear: the Partido Popular party got an absolute majority in the parliament from the citizens that trusted Rajoy as a leader of this party to try to change things for the better.
Today, almost seven months after that 21st of December of 2011 when he assumed the office, the situation in Spain is heartbreaking to say an euphemism. Nothing changed for the better but for the worse. The successive promulgation of decrees, laws, ministerial orders, etc., are having catastrophical effects in our economy and society. During these seven months of presidency, Rajoy, the prime minister of Spain, has increased all type of taxes, direct and indirect, cutting budget in basic areas, in those departments that define the quality and welfare of any country: there have been huge cuts in education, in health, in housing benefits, in unemployment benefits, cuts in public services...
Everything has been done according to Rajoy, to reduce the deficit that Spain holds. Surprisingly enough, during the first four months of the year 2012, and after the first rise of taxes, Spain is expending more than double than the money obtained from taxes and different resources. Yesterday, 13th of April government rose again the taxes, lowering the public servants' salary around a 7% among other measures.
Well, this is the definition of deficit: "an excess of expenditure or liabilities over income or assets in a given period". In other words, when the expenses are higher than the income. Obviously, to reduce this deficit it's possible by increasing the income and by reducing the expenditures. In Spain the deficit is caused basically by the Autonomic Regions. The expenditure of these regions is endangering the possibility to face the daily payments that any country has to manage: public servants, roads, infrastructures, public services, etc. Besides, Spain is obliged to pay enormous quantities of money for its debt, originated by the deficit early on mentioned. In this situation, is logical to think that the main prime minister's concern should be to cancel all the useless expenditures of the autonomic regions. In Spain there are more than 30.000 cars with chauffeurs, 124 regional embassies, bottomless privileges of the politicians by which they can get retired after having worked only for 7 years or not to have to pay taxes of their 75% of income, or having the possibility to accumulate various salaries. Many politicians have two o more salaries. Plus, there are more than one million people working in the administration chosen directly by the politicians. In Spain there are 17 regional autonomies. All of them are in bankruptcy except 2. Along the years, those regions were given more autonomy in order to manage different aspect that were controlled by the central government. With that extension of autonomy, the whole country had to cover the money due for these regions.
With this situation in Spain, with almost 25% of unemployment, with a broken society by a lack of opportunities, political corruption and disintegration, Mr. Rajoy's solution is just to keep raising taxes, cutting rights for citizens, and above all, preserving and maintaining the privileges of his fellow politicians along Spain. Because for Mr. Rajoy, the only essential thing, the only thing that matters is to remain in the office, to keep the power. Mr. Rajoy doesn't care about the regular citizens, unemployed people, humble employees that are lucky to keep their jobs and every day have more taxes to pay and less money to the next salary. He, as a paradigm of the politicians privileges, have 2 salaries earning more than 200. 000 Euros per year. He has been sued for keeping his position as a mercantile register in Santa Pola, post that is consider by some as incompatible with his position as a prime minister.
With this scenario, and with no intention to force the regions to reduce their expenses, Mr. Rajoy is leading Spain. The main cause of the decay of Spain, -the privileges of the politicians and their cost- is untouched. Mr. Rajoy is just focused on squeezing more and more the citizens. The message before and after the elections as a president, were the opposites.
Now, after few months in the office, it is clear that he is even worse than his predecessor, because Rajoy not only lied, but also betrayed millions of Spaniards that believed in him.
The future of Spain is terrible, and will worsen. Probably it is not by accident how Spaniards have these politicians as representatives. In the end, they are the consequence of what the citizens are.
Spain, a cadaverous country, fed by corruption and decomposition.
Since the arrival of Prime minister Rajoy to Moncloa's office in November of 2011, the Government has raised 41 times the taxes pressure over the Spaniards by creating new taxes or simply by increasing the taxation of
the ones already created. We can state that millions of people in Spain have been fooled by the ones who promised to serve the country. The Partido Popular in the office did not do any of the most important reforms that
the country really needs: the elimination of the omnipresent corruption in all the institutions, the continuous splurge, the installment of effective measures to dissipate the huge ratio of unemployment and the reduction of the
size of the public organizations subsidized with the money of the citizens.
After two consecutive terms of socialists leading the country to perdition, Rajoy is doing the same as his predecessor, even worse, because never before the amount of taxes over the Spaniards had been so oppressive.
Actually, we can admit that Rajoy's term is just the third one of Zapatero. None of the main socialist laws and reforms have been eliminated. There is a complete continuation in the legacy of Zapatero, a ruthless
continuation of that legacy that keeps impoverishing the country day after day.
But the worse of it, it is that there is not any solution for this. The country is so corrupted that there is not any possibility to be led by any other group rather than socialists or PP. After all the corruption, injustice, cruelty,
unemployment, lies, abuses and incompetence, the Spaniards today would keep voting to these parties in more than the 50%. In other words, more than half of the nation is accomplice with what is happening in the
country.
There is not hope, nor future for Spain with the response of its inhabitants. How is it possible to keep voting these two parties, that are the same one, after all? I have a theory, by which the explanation is simple: the lack of
pirnciples, self-respect, moral values and dignity that characterize the present Spanish society. For more than a half of the nation, it became irrelevant that their representatives are corrupted and are taking them to poverty
and misery. For them, the knowledge of truth does not matter anymore. For more than a half of the Spaniards there is not any political cost from so much atrocity. There is none.
Spain is nowadays a languishing land, dragging itself day after day, with grayish countenances, convinced by its cowardice that the best thing to do when you became a slave, is to do nothing, just like its president.