Masochism is Here to Stay in Spain
The Spanish are a masochistic people. We love to flagellate ourselves with the whip of the reactionary right. Eighty years ago, we had one of the most advanced republics in Europe. And the reactionary elements in the military stamped it out into darkness for forty years. In 1974, Portuguese armed forces and thousands of civilians marched against their Estado Novo and performed an almost bloodless coup. They effectively threw over their Fascist state. In Spain, although there were protests and talk, we let our dictator die in his bed, in peace, in power. We only changed our political system afterwards. And forgave our totalitarian fathers and all they had done.
And that is what we have done again this Sunday. We have forgiven the conservative PP all the scandals, all the money laundering, all the misbehaving they have done. We have effectively put them back in power after complaining, marching, and protesting against their reactionary ways. Marches of thousands of people have petered out to a simple re-election of the right. Days of claiming a change was needed, days of claiming our government back from a rancid two-party system that simply kept power passing from one privileged clan to another have all come down to one day of keeping the status quo. I suppose we love to complain and want to keep complaining. The more we are stepped upon, the more we love the pain and the pressure; and the more we squirm to breathe, the more ecstatic we become.
With 100% of the vote counted, the conservative PP won 137 seats, and its lapdogs, Ciudadanos, 32. Socialist PSOE won 85, and the coalition of Izquierda Unida and Podemos just 71. Last December the PP won less seats and Ciudadanos more. And despite everything that has happened since then, and all the scandals that have appeared, some just over a week ago, the PP won more seats this time around. While absolute majority is 176 seats, alliances and abstentions on votes can allow another four years of right-wing government, as well as more austerity, and cutbacks, and erosion of our freedom of speech, and laws that favor private hospitals and elitist schools, and too-big-to-fail banks. And those citizens that don't or won't conform can leave the country or go live under a bridge.
Some who say this is going to end badly in another civil war shouldn't worry about it. Spaniards have become too lazy to fight for their ideals and too complacent. We simply love to talk. As long as there's plenty of soccer and stupid celebrity talkshows on television, and as long as Cáritas and other associations hand out enough food to stave off hunger for those who have lost all hopes of finding a job with a dignified salary, Spaniards will not upset the status quo. It doesn't matter that many of the boasted new jobs have a length of maybe a couple of weeks or a month at the most. It doesn't matter that those jobs have salaries mostly at or below the measely minimum wage of just over six hundred euros a month (typical rents can be anywhere between three hundred and six hundred a month) and ten-hour days. It doesn't matter that to be seen in a hospital E.R. a patient might wait eight or ten hours because there aren't enough doctors, or wait over a year to be urgently seen by a specialist. It doesn't matter that students are crammed over thirty to a classroom, where they might be taught English by a teacher who specialized in French. It doesn't matter that old age pensioners, many of whom have to take in their unemployed children and grandchildren, have had their pension effectively frozen for years, and then are told not to complain because they've gotten a twenty cent raise in January. It doesn't matter that a family with a dependent member now has to wait years for financial help from Social Services, and even then might be denied any money because the dependency is deemed not totally incapacitating, even if the family can't afford the special beds, wheelchairs, etc., the patient needs.
I could go on, but none of this matters. Spaniards will not upset the status quo, neither by voting in new parties with new ideas, nor much less by revolting physically against the government. The days of civil disobedience have disappeared. Now it's days of civil passiveness. We just don't seem to care.
These are days of rage and impotence in which I feel I could take a sledgehammer to a brick wall and knock it down in five minutes flat.
And that is what we have done again this Sunday. We have forgiven the conservative PP all the scandals, all the money laundering, all the misbehaving they have done. We have effectively put them back in power after complaining, marching, and protesting against their reactionary ways. Marches of thousands of people have petered out to a simple re-election of the right. Days of claiming a change was needed, days of claiming our government back from a rancid two-party system that simply kept power passing from one privileged clan to another have all come down to one day of keeping the status quo. I suppose we love to complain and want to keep complaining. The more we are stepped upon, the more we love the pain and the pressure; and the more we squirm to breathe, the more ecstatic we become.
With 100% of the vote counted, the conservative PP won 137 seats, and its lapdogs, Ciudadanos, 32. Socialist PSOE won 85, and the coalition of Izquierda Unida and Podemos just 71. Last December the PP won less seats and Ciudadanos more. And despite everything that has happened since then, and all the scandals that have appeared, some just over a week ago, the PP won more seats this time around. While absolute majority is 176 seats, alliances and abstentions on votes can allow another four years of right-wing government, as well as more austerity, and cutbacks, and erosion of our freedom of speech, and laws that favor private hospitals and elitist schools, and too-big-to-fail banks. And those citizens that don't or won't conform can leave the country or go live under a bridge.
Some who say this is going to end badly in another civil war shouldn't worry about it. Spaniards have become too lazy to fight for their ideals and too complacent. We simply love to talk. As long as there's plenty of soccer and stupid celebrity talkshows on television, and as long as Cáritas and other associations hand out enough food to stave off hunger for those who have lost all hopes of finding a job with a dignified salary, Spaniards will not upset the status quo. It doesn't matter that many of the boasted new jobs have a length of maybe a couple of weeks or a month at the most. It doesn't matter that those jobs have salaries mostly at or below the measely minimum wage of just over six hundred euros a month (typical rents can be anywhere between three hundred and six hundred a month) and ten-hour days. It doesn't matter that to be seen in a hospital E.R. a patient might wait eight or ten hours because there aren't enough doctors, or wait over a year to be urgently seen by a specialist. It doesn't matter that students are crammed over thirty to a classroom, where they might be taught English by a teacher who specialized in French. It doesn't matter that old age pensioners, many of whom have to take in their unemployed children and grandchildren, have had their pension effectively frozen for years, and then are told not to complain because they've gotten a twenty cent raise in January. It doesn't matter that a family with a dependent member now has to wait years for financial help from Social Services, and even then might be denied any money because the dependency is deemed not totally incapacitating, even if the family can't afford the special beds, wheelchairs, etc., the patient needs.
I could go on, but none of this matters. Spaniards will not upset the status quo, neither by voting in new parties with new ideas, nor much less by revolting physically against the government. The days of civil disobedience have disappeared. Now it's days of civil passiveness. We just don't seem to care.
These are days of rage and impotence in which I feel I could take a sledgehammer to a brick wall and knock it down in five minutes flat.
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