Blog

It is not often that we have the pleasure of being present at the birth of a new infinitive in a language but we Americans residing in Spain have had that experience. In yesterday´s El País we find the infinitive trumpizar, used in the press for the first time to express doing/saying something absurd or offensive to later characterize it as sublime, magnificent, unique in human history or brilliant, supreme or more modestly,  something typical of Me. Big D is now immortal in the history of the Spanish language.

All the media shows, the press and spokespersons for the EC and the UN have gone on record as opposed to Violence as a Political Weapon. Of course we all agree and I do not pretend to excuse it in the streets of Barcelona on Oct.1. Here in Spain, the Spanish government was as surprised by it as were so many others. In reality, most of us living in Spain were expecting it to show its ugly face. First, it was public knowledge that professional rabble rousers were on the scene to provoke it. Secondly, the politicized Mossos d´Escuadra did little more than smile at the violation of Supreme Court orders to block the illegal referendum. So, when the Spanish police (not riot police, at all) were called in to enforce the Court´s ruling that the referendum as anticonstitional, the masses of people rooming the streets has an enemy to insult and outrage. The policemen are trained but they are also  human. after hours of terrible tension due to constant provocation bad things flared up. 20 policemen were hospitalized and some 6 civilians were too. Now word has it that 800 people were hospitalized. That is a lie. Only 2 civlians required special medical attention.

The Catalonian government provoked confrontation during weeks of propaganda urging people to ignore the Catalonian Supreme Court´s ruling that the referendum called for was illegal and unconstitutional.  The Mossos stood back but invited the Spanish national police to face the ire of the populace masses of independence defenders (30% of the Catalonian population). The nationalists who run the Mossos ordered them to be nice.

Again, things got out of hand.  Some police and a few civilians suffered minor harm while only two suffered serious hurt. We all agree that force has no role in politics but let´s go on record to deny respectability to political cynics like Maduro en Venezuela and Puigdemont in Barcelona when they invite the hordes to take the streets to achieve their criminal objectives: power, power and all power. Without law, there can be no freedom, neither in Caracas, nor Turkey nor Barcelona. That is what Journalists Without Borders were saying regarding the obstacles the Generalitat was throwing into their path here, just prior to the facade of staged,  chaotic elections known as the Referendum. Mr. Puigdemont knew that his propaganda of hate for Spain would sow in his more  blind and emotionally hysterical fans: blind rage.

In Venezuela, in North Korea, in the Peoples´Republic of China,  in Syria or in Myramar, how long would the establishment take in reacting with violence to manifestations like those rocking Catalonia today? Were we not living in a free and democratic nation, masses of Catalonians would be dead or injured right now.  Puigdemont and his hosts refuse to recognize that the Spanish constitution does not allow a region to go its own way. National political leaders have offered again and again to review laws but as a democratic head of government, Mr. Rajoy can not pretend to accept unlawful demands. In Catalonia, it is not the military or the police that are stopping the sedition and rebellion against the Law of the Land. It is the courts! Mr. Maduro of Venezuela  supports the nationalists. Does that tell us anything? What would happen in the USA if a state threatened to declare independence? The solution is dialogue but not with Barcelona or Madrid setting the agenda. Madrid has offered to talk. Barcelona accepts if its conditions are accepted prior to sitting down.

In the Spanish press of Sept. 18, the coverage of the mass exodus of companies from Catalonia was given considerable attention. The President of the Spanish business leaders whose president is a Catalan has warned that a unilateral declaration of independence on the part of the regional nationalist parties would bring about a 20 to 30% drop in business activity, the closing down of major firms and their relocation in other parts of Spain so as to remain in the EU. The Generalitat insists that unilateral independence would not affect business and finance. That is another example of the falsehoods they preach. The Romantic fantasy about statehood is behind their escape to the land of OZ.

In Spain today the issue is clearly extremist. The independistas who are a minority have always insisted that the issue to negotiate is ¿Free Catalonia, Yes or Yes? of course the constitutional government in Madrid can not negotiate what that the Constitution of 1978 does not allow: the arbitrary change in status of any of the constituent parts of the Spanish nation. The Catalonians voted en mass in favor of that document when it was approved, first by popular vote in a national referendum. Now, the hosts of the cause insist that the law od the land is less then regional elecyions in which they did not win a majority of votes. 100 leftist Catalan intelectuals have come out clearly in today´s EL PAIS declaring the intellectual fraud of M. Puigdemont and his government. For the first time in history the left supports the centrist national government in the urgent need of firm action against sedition.  Madrid has always been willing to hold a constitutional convention to study possible changes in the Law of the Land but Barcelona insists that Madrid admit its desires in spite of anything in the Constitution. As the leftist state in El País today, without laws there can be no real freedom nor human rights. THe lies never end. Yesterday the regional vice president declared that the EU would recognize a free Catalonia at once. What he said was that the EU would recognize Catalonia´s right to request membership. Of course the regionalists did not mention that with one vote against them they would become another Albania, ou in the cold. Nor does he want to hear about the promise to abandon Catalonia of those companies that trade outside of Catalonia. THe New York Times coverage of the issue is pro dream world a la nationalism where common sense, truth and real negotiation are out of the question because official Barcelona only understands take it or take it as we wish things to be. To me it sounds like South  Carolina back in Lincoln´s time.

e what the Constitution