More than 1,500 detainees and virtually unanimous international condemnation do not intimidate the Spanish right and its media mouthpieces. As far as we know, ours is the only country in the world where the main opposition party has used the fascist coup in Brazil to attack its own government: the Progressive Executive who came out of the polls. An unprecedented event and a demeaning sight for anyone with a modicum of common sense which, however, can permeate the willing victims of his propaganda machine. And the essential: a clear warning of the danger we are in.
The storming of the US Capitol came as a bit of a surprise, even though we have seen Trump’s appeals to his supporters. In Brazil, none of the Bolsonarists took over Congress, the Presidential Palace and the Supreme Court: it was predictable. Similar actions in Spain have many numbers to accomplish. The symptoms are so clear-cut and alarming that one does not understand that everything continues the same, letting the assault grow.
Fascism is a problem that crosses the world, yes. She learned to do it by trusting the oblivion that forgets his role in starting World War II and all the misfortunes it brought. Spain added to its Franco regime and left it completely unpunished, keeping its heirs in the centers of power. There must be global action and each country must also address it alone.
In ours, the wires are clearly visible. It is a joint work of the political and media far right led by the People’s Party. Vox is a little happier knowing he is a faithful co-religionist of Bolsonaro at inopportune moments. On the night of the coup in Brazil, PP spokesman Cuca Gamarra and Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo came forward; then various party bosses succeeded one another. Escalating until the main PP bosses appear in the delusional campaign with the same string of manipulations.
They try to blame the president and the entire Spanish government. Equating a coup d’état – in which a mob violently storms the headquarters of the three great powers of democracy – with the referendum in Catalonia five years ago. With the massing of ballot boxes for citizens who were voluntarily repressed by Rajoy’s government. From Rajoy, a certain M. Rajoy of PP. With a violence that has gone around the world. Not vice versa, not by voters.
Everyone used the blunder of calling it a coup, including the far-right media in their service. Neither the Spanish justice, that is to say, has classified it as such, nor as a rebellion. The voices of the PP yes, I’ll take it again now, to see if it runs. The humiliation is maximum. Especially when the democrats of the world – where they prove they are not – are shocked by the assault on Brazil. It is the second time it has been tried, after the USA. A ban has been opened for all the dirtiest in every country to trample on the popular will expressed at the polls and attempt a coup, manual or soft. There are many ways to destabilize that fall into that segment.
The PP has not ceased to consider the democratic government of Spain illegitimate according to the same rule as the American and Brazilian putschists: they don’t like it. Only they and their co-religionists like each other. They disqualify the government of Pedro Sánchez with unacceptable virulence and audacity. Now they show another step, chilling. Spain’s state-level right combines its proven corruption with a disgusting lack of scruples when using such essential issues to seize power. The PP has plunged into the abyss.
And the essential question is: what is the goal of this campaign? Minimize what happened in Brazil and justify a coup in Spain? Because the other hoax they use is the one that also tries to equate a peaceful and authorized demonstration with a violent assault on state powers in Brazil. Journalist Daniel Bernabé disassembled it with precisionIt was something radically different in form and motivation. Not to mention the multiple times in which demonstrations in Congress have ended, for example those of the police and civil guards in 2020, who even broke the security cordon.
It is not that this Spanish right has not warned. The seizure of the judiciary is a self-evident fact that no democracy that considers itself such a consensus would do. The astonishing thing is that they managed to reverse the responsibilities and even the polls dare, according to what they tell us, that “The institutional crisis” benefits the PP and extends its advantage with the PSOE. If yes, who has been able to manipulate society in such a way as to believe that the causes of the crisis are the victims to be saved? It’s incredible, but it shows a media propaganda work that deserves a Guinness book for the effectiveness of the trap. And the same happens with the manifest corruptions, with the destruction of health and many disasters that the PP perpetrates in praise of the media.
It is for all bands. With overflowing aggression and very serious groundless accusations, as Professor Ignacio Sánchez Cuenca denounces with alarm. It is the political right that calls for struggles and rebellions and it is theirs head columnists. There is something rotten in the Villa y Corte.
We journalists who take this job seriously, and democracy even more seriously, have become a kind of Cassandra condemned not to be heard until the fascist fire devastates us. I’m not for work, nor for me, nor for anyone.
There are many weeks, months, years of warning, and the final onslaught is just around the corner, if not done with a bang. At this rate he seizes all the power plotting to the brave, without breaks and without any scruple. It is not possible that those Spanish citizens who do not care about obtaining real information feed only on what is released on all audio and video channels daily from morning to night. It is essential to act. The policies of lying and continued misrepresentation are not freedom of expression but an attack on democracy. But above all what cannot continue – even if it is useless to repeat it many times without success – is the disinformation of public television. With exceptions, of course, that can barely alleviate the general trend.
In the coup in Brazil it manifested itself once again. Like many of their colleagues, they forced the concepts of polarization, a divided country and, above all, right and left, by loading the inks. No, it is between democracy and fascism, it is between some punishable attitudes and others within and in defense of legality. They cannot be collected at the same level. We cannot help but remember that “if you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the oppressive side,” as Bishop Desmond Tutu put it. Without forgetting the warning about the lukewarmness of Martin Luther King, the fatal victim of intolerance that cannot be fought: «The silence of “good people” worries me. Those who consider themselves such without really being.
It is a programmed involution, in which, as soon as the year begins, four men kill four women who were or were their partners – one of them for just one sexual encounter – and blame the Ministry for Equality. Everyday. When you know, for example, four ultra-Catholic anti-feminist lobbies led by Spaniards who operate in Brussels with a lot of money for the crusade and are not even named.
Review this country’s hated and blessed list and you will see demons flying in the media skies and trying to clip the wings of many of those who fight for others.
Society has been led into an illusion full of falsehoods. The confusion that reigns in many heads between ideologies, facts, faults, shows a multitude of beings possessed by truly erratic concepts. Inoculated and were unable to digest. It happens in Spain, in the United States, in many other places, in Brazil without a doubt. There they respond to Lula’s program to eradicate hunger in many cases trusting that it will, but others believe that hunger is satiated by going to the offices of evangelical churches. Here in Madrid, public health is taught on the terrace over a beer. And of course there are fellow citizens who are guilty of what happens to all of us. From the exalted aggressors of Brazil to those accustomed to insults wherever they find a loudspeaker to shout and a prey to grab in the jaws. They have exemplary teachers in many political mouthpieces.
With its statements after the coup in Brazil, the PP shows that the mask has been removed. It has hindered the renewal of the judiciary as much as possible, its use of the means bent to its interests is clear, and there is a lack of total political power that seeks to smooth the procedures with false excuses to justify itself. It’s terrifying. And even Cassandra can’t stop repeating herself.
Justice must be renewed in accordance with the Constitution. RTVE must report rigorously and professionally. Already. Tepidity is no longer allowed. In no media, being all public service, fascism can continue to be supported and promoted. Those who do not practice journalism but rather far-right activism must leave Congressional press accreditations. The constitutional respect of the security forces, an essential link in all the processes we have seen, must be monitored.
The Government cannot continue to look at these critical issues from one side to the other. None of the coalition members. Not even investment partners. It will not get better, it will get worse and galloping like we are seeing. It’s not right and left that clarifies, democracy is taken away from us by a gap caused by obvious trauma.