Up to Here!

In this week's Camino a ÍtacaCamino a Ítaca a look at how a hard, rightwing shift in UK politics robbed me of a democratic right. Click over to read the original version published in Spanish in HOY or read the English translation below. (PDF en castellano abajo) 

It was a proto neofascist that took away my right to vote tomorrow. It was an opportunistic self-serving buffoon, a charlatan, a fraudster, a Perses of politics whose rhetoric eventually robbed me of the right to democratically express myself in the place that I live…and strangely enough it wasn’t the fellow clown and recently convicted felon, Donald Trump, who deprived me of that.

As a dual UK/Canadian citizen, I once was able to vote in the European elections here in Spain. But that was before the little island fell off the continent and was swept into the rightwing populist sea. That was a time before Nigel Farange and the far right populism of UKIP wormed their way into the heart of traditional British conservatism. Once there, they yanked the party so far to the right that they eventually pushed the country off the precipice in the absurd and senseless harikari known as Brexit.

The country now lies shattered, a mere shadow of what it used to be. Every single lie that was promised has proven to be untrue. The far right’s dream of divesting itself from Europe and its health regulations has led to disasters like unrestricted water companies dumping thousands of tons of raw sewage in the waters around Britain’s most popular beaches. After following the siren song of the far right, the country is now literally surrounded in shit.

Unlike the far right in the United Kingdom, ultra parties on the continent know that openly stating they plan to leave the European Union would be very unpopular among voters, especially in a very pro-Europe Spain. They also regret that the coup d’états staged by their forebearers are now unfashionable.

Their new strategy is more insidious. Like a cancer eating its host, they now plan to destroy the system from inside. And if polls can be trusted, it looks like a large percentage of voters are willing to give them their chance to do so.

These polls have also come as a surprise to the more center right parties like the PP. As they see their support hemorrhaging away to the right, like the Tories in the UK, they have chosen to harden their message and adopt some of the hardline rhetoric of the fascists. We hear more and more about the dangers of the ‘other’, ecolocuras, giving precedence to national law over European law and traditional families and less and less about solidarity, economic union and workers’ rights.

The wolf is at the door and Feijoo has even gone so far as to say that he would be open to forming alliances with Meloni’s group in the EU parliament, as she somehow isn’t like the other far right parties. The president of the European Commission and head of the EPP, Ursula von der Leyen, has also retracted the red lines she once had about forming alliances with the far right.

The choice is stark but clear tomorrow. A decision between whether to dismantle Europe and those who will form alliances with them or more Europe. A vote for the latter means clean water, and for the former, like the British, we’ll be up to our necks in shit.

Release the ...Bees?!

In this week's Camino a Ítaca a look at the agricultural protests that have been taking place across Spain and indeed Europe. Swayed by the siren song of the ultra right, farmers just may be delivering themselves into the hands of the very people who support the neoliberal policies that make their lives difficult. Click over to read the original piece in Spanish in the HOY or read the English translation below. (PDF en castellano abajo)

This wasn’t Mr. Burns from the Simpsons snickering and telling Smithers to release the hounds. Its vibe was more like something straight out of a 70’s James Bond movie. Except this evil mastermind wasn’t sitting above a tank full of circling sharks wearing a baby blue polyester leisure suit in front of a world map.

This would-be-mastermind had the slicked back longish hair of a bullfighter, black horned rimmed glasses, the checkered shirt of a secondary school math teacher and wasn’t necessarily looking for world domination. This headman had more regional designs in mind.

Rather than threatening to use his new orbiting satellite death ray if his outrageous demands weren’t met, what this man was menacing the world with was something much more ordinary: bees. And not killer African bees either, but just your average honeybee.

In a rather surreal press conference the president of Asaja Extremadura threatened to open up the hives that they had trucked in from the countryside if the riot police were used to block them in their ongoing agricultural protests against the government and the EU. It was as if they had been trained to attack after he gave a secret signal. Words so utterly bizarre that I was convinced they were from the parody website El Mundo Today until I realized that they were in fact true.

But the deeper you dig into these ongoing protests, the more incongruities and outright contradictions you begin to unearth. Attack bees end up being simply anecdotal in the heady brew of fake news and globalist conspiracy theories that surround the protests.

In a rural milieu that is by nature conservative, the ultra-right have seen a large section of disgruntled voters ripe for the picking. They’ve doubled their efforts to harness this discontent and have tried to incite them further, using their dubious explanations for some of the real and justified demands of the farmers.

It’s fertile ground for their antienvironmental stances, creating strawman arguments against their loathed 2030 Agenda. All the while placing the blame an overreaching EU for the problems farmers face. Another of the organizations that the far right also deeply distrusts and is suspicious of.

The somewhat ironically green party has also done a complete about-face regarding government subsidies and grants. They are now calling for increased grants for things like helping to palliate the effects of the long-standing drought in some parts of the country. A natural catastrophe caused by something they don’t even believe in, climate change.

Then there are the protective measures they are now in favor of. They wave their made in China national flags and now insist on protectionist measures they normally abhor to help guarantee food sovereignty, perhaps more because it is a Muslim majority country that they want protection against rather than their preferred vulture capital funds listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

Real, complex problems exist in the agricultural sector but much of these have to do with the neoliberal policies that the extreme right favor rather than their fallacious arguments against the 2030 Agenda. Farmers need to be cautious who they hitch their wagons to or in the end may end up even worse.

Inflation

This week's Camino a Ítaca looks at the rising cost of merely taking a breath. Click over to read the original Spanish version in el HOY or read the English translation below. (PDF abajo)

After living and working on four continents, my social media feeds can at times seem like a BBC world weather report. Friends living in Australia and Southeast Asia tend to post in the very early hours here in Spain. During the day, friends and relations here in Europe and across the Mediterranean in Africa fill my feeds. Then, just as I’m going to bed, New York, Calgary and Los Angeles start to chirp in.

The disparity of the time differences is also usually reflected in the content. In just one day, ex colleagues in Hong Kong can be lamenting the erosion of democratic freedoms, while in Yemen they might be bluntly speaking of ongoing famine and nearby missile strikes. While in Key West, Florida ,they find themselves once again preparing for hurricanes.

Ideological differences can also be just as severe. Acquaintances in the Midwest of the United States might be virulently justifying their right to openly carry weapons of war at the same time as British friends post pictures of the endless airport queues they now have to suffer after the Brexit disaster.

The curious thing is that amidst all this noise and disparity a strikingly common theme has emerged in recent months. It’s a general complaint that obviates time zones and ideologies, and it’s getting louder on all sides.

How have things become so expensive?

And while everyone on my Facebook wall unanimously concurs that prices have risen way beyond what can even be considered extraordinary, the consensus stops there.

The right and left may debate about whose fault this is, but the cause is clear. Corporate profits are at their highest point in 70 years.

In Poland they blame the far-right for the people’s inability to make it to the end of the month, while here in Spain Feijoo and his acolytes seem to believe that Pedro el guapo possesses superpowers to cause this phenomenon around the world. But the painful truth is that at least 60% of the price increases we are suffering stem from corporate profits. Sorry Olga and Macarena, it’s not taxes.

Why are corporations raising prices? Simple, because they can.

The global inflation we are experiencing, conveniently hidden behind the veil of a war, has been the excuse to not only pass along costs to the consumer but to inflate prices beyond that and engage in straightforward price gouging.

How is this possible? Easy. While the likes of the ex-minister of Finance, Fatima Bañez joins the ever-growing list of defunct politicians to join the ranks of these enormous multinationals, our economies are forced to depend on a shrinking number of corporate giants with the power to raise prices.

If markets were truly competitive, companies would be forced to keep their prices down in order to prevent competitors from grabbing away customers, but as banks and these enormous companies merge into larger and larger conglomerates, where is this real competition?

Corporations are using the excuse of inflation to raise prices and make fatter profits. Call it extreme left, call it extreme right, but this structural problem can only be solved one way: the aggressive use of antitrust law.

My timelines are screaming under the weight of this abuse, but I wonder…is anyone in the EU listening?

Siren Songs

Strange sounds heard on the Camino a Ithaca, my next installment on the journey. Click over to the original here or the English version below.

Good Drunks?

Writing in the local paper. Local Issues with a global take. I never translate literally and the editor trims at will to make it fit. Here's my version, then theirs, which can now be seen online  (in Spanish) as well. 

Nothing To Envy

Writing in the local paper. Local Issues with a global take. I never translate literally and the editor trims at will to make it fit. Here's my version, then theirs, which can now be seen online as well.

A Little More than Just a Headline

Writing in the local paper. Local issues with a global take. I never translate literally and the editor trims at will to make it fit. Here's my version, then theirs.

Long before moving to Caceres, I spent some time teaching and traveling around the ex-Soviet republics that straddle the Caucasus Mountains. Cowboy capitalism was rampant in the area and as a result the locals were quickly beginning to realize that perhaps the new reality they had long dreamed of wasn’t as great as they had expected. In Azerbaijan, the only highway that had been repaired since the Soviets had left was the one that ran from the capital to the oil terminal where the pipeline to the West began. The so-called friendly West’s main concern was made very clear on the only smooth road in the country. Beyond that shiny tarmac to the Caspian, the rest of the country’s infrastructure was in steady decay. Once glorious squares that gave homage to the Socialist republic were now covered in weeds. Now, headless statues of Lenin and Stalin presided over crumbling monuments to a different era. The money had run out and there was no one left to care for the grandiose projects that crumbled in each main square as you travelled from Baku to Tbilisi. The new dictators had their own cult of personality to build and mother Russia wasn’t paying in dollars. No one had the time to think or care about the past. Public works projects often tend to be that way. The 4-year politician gets some money from the EU and puts up some Caceres Centro signs that are soon forgotten, left to literally fade away. Now the new idea is to build an escalator in Alzapiernas street to help the steady stream of pensioners who come and visit our fair city get up that steep hill. How long until those rotating stairs stop turning? If grafitiers can’t be stopped from splattering the walls along Pintores and Moret street with their brutally ugly scrawl, how long will it take until something gets caught in the stairs? Alzapiernas (raise your legs) earns its name, especially after a day touring the old town but you only have to climb the stairs and look across the street for a reminder of another project left to rot, the infamous elevator to nowhere.

Referendum Neverendum

Writing in the local paper. Local Issues with a global take. I never translate literally and the editor trims at will to make it fit. Here's my version, then theirs.

I’ve lived through two referendums in my life. I may have been too young to fully realize what was happening during the first and it’s true that the second found me a spectator living on the American side of the fence, but as a Canadian, I have always been aware of the Quebec question. 

Since the day I learned to read, I have seen that all packaging in Canada comes in two languages and even before that I would have heard the national anthem sung in both. Quebec has been and will be an unresolved question, even though it is around three thousand kilometres away from the richer, oil producing region where I was born. And that’s the point, these types of things won’t go away by pretending the law will save us. Small mindedness is a difficult bug to eradicate and common sense seems to be a scarce commodity. 

As I write this, the outcome of the hijacked election eight hundred kilometres from here is uncertain but that’s not the point. No matter what side was chosen, the vacancy sign out here in Extremadura should have been hung out and lit up long ago. Where are the delegations from Caceres and the rest of Extremadura rolling out the red carpet for the Catalan companies who might have to soon pay duties on products they sell in Zaragoza? Sales pitches really have rarely been easier. Keep your factory Martorell and watch as each car costs you a fortune in taxes as you move them into Europe or relocate to the cheaper stretches of open spaces we have around us. Worried about finding workers? No worries, we have plenty of people who would love to join your team and I imagine that more than a few of your current staff would love to return to the land of their ancestors. 

I feel sorry for the Catalans whose right to choose has been hijacked by a false pleblicite but if they still insist on exchanging their Euros for Pujoles, that’s their choice. I don’t see why Extremadura can’t capitalize on their folly. Be it this one, or those to come.

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Fiestas for Who?

Writing in the local paper. Local issues with a global take. I never translate literally and the editor trims at will to make it fit. Here's my version, then theirs.

Thank goodness the powers that be have followed through with their promise to make us all more efficient and Nordic. No more of those useless holidays that fall in the middle of the week. Just like the aptly-named Bank Holidays in the U.K, all midweek fiestas will soon be moved to the following Monday. This, along with talk of bringing Spain back to its pre-Franco time zone, aligning us once again with the British isles and Portugal, is supposed to make our habits more...European shall we say. 

But if it is indeed our goal to ape the so-called success of the North, a few other changes will have to be made here in Caceres. First of all, outlawing pinchos and tapas. After all, why should we encourage neighbours to get together and socialize outside their homes, away from the glowing blue box? The growing atomization of society should also be sped up and the growing trend of replacing human relationships with dogs a-la-Parisien should also be encouraged. Beer and wine will also have to be made prohibitively expensive so that you can only afford two a month and giant tarps will have to be put up to create that monotonous grey ceiling that hovers over northern Europe for the majority of year. This will of course encourage people to stay inside or at least fester just a little bit longer at their desks. Sobremesas will no longer be needed because everyone will be too overwhelmed with work to talk. This in addition, of course, to banning all lunches that can’t be stuffed between two slices of bread. Public squares will be renamed after famous brand names and a ten minute loitering limit strictly enforced. All older people, due to their inherent slowness, will have to be shuttered away from the general public in homes and fed on bread and water in order to reduce pension payments. 

Well now that I think of it, except the annoying midweek holidays thes past two weeks , let Europe end at the Pyrenees for all I care. 

Do We Want to be the Same?

Writing in the local paper. Local issues with a global take. I never translate literally and the editor trims at will to make it fit. Here's my version, then theirs.

It seems like the mighty New York Times can never quite get it right when writing about this country. Many paella-moons ago I remember a diplomatic meltdown that almost took place when a Times travel writer published an article that happened to make a passing comment about how more than a few Spanish parents dressed their children in clothes that wouldn’t look out of place in colourized World War II photographs. The then nascent social media was set ablaze with indignant Spaniards whose pride had been mortally wounded by a fleeting line in an article that then went on to praise the modernizing wave that was then sweeping across the peninsula. According to the protesters, Calatravas and Guggenheims were the New Spain and frilly dresses and short trousers no longer fit in on the modern Zara streets. Now comes another NYT article that, according to some, once again dares throw stones at glass houses. The piece, along with many others in papers around the world, echoes some of the findings of the parliamentary commission set up by Mr. Modernity’s government that is looking into the possibility of returning Spain to its pre-Franco time zone and attempt to increase productivity by bringing Spanish work habits, and more precisely hours, more in line with the rest of Europe. Op-Eds spilled ink about the revival of the black legend and one again the tweetsphere was set abuzz with furious attempts to prove the falsity of siestaing Spaniards in 140 characters or less. Praise from both sides of the political spectrum rained down on the modern Ibero-European workers who, like their Nordic counterparts, are chained to their desks with soggy sandwiches and Starbucks coffee for sustenance. 7 minute lunch breaks and competition among our electric companies are now the norm. Conclusive proof that Europe indeed continues beyond the Pyrenees for some, harbingers of the coming apocalypse for others. Once upon a time in this country, yet not so long ago, you were allowed to make an adult choice between syrupy American sweetness or a cold beer from vending machines on sweaty August cercanias platforms. People once trusted their neighbour’s craft rather than being handed down the definition of safe cheeses and wines by some tax collecting EU bureaucrat. Butane bottles cost less than a trip to Ibiza and we could boast of a truly public healthcare system second to none, not to mention of course, the audacity of a month’s vacation. Accountants weren’t needed to tally everyone’s consumption after those old-fashioned long lunches and people tended to bond with other people rather than dogs. Hurray for sameness, ‘regular’ schedules and someone telling me when to go to bed. Well, at least here in Caceres we still have the kids in uncomfortable shoes and doilies, and of course, the odd siesta in July.

New Year's Revolutions

Writing in the local paper. Local issues with a global take. I never translate literally and the editor trims at will to make it fit. Here's my version, then theirs.

It’s hard to tell which Americanisms will get adopted in foreign lands and I suppose it’s even more difficult to predict just how these foreign trends will morph as they become fixed in the host culture. Unfortunately, these days it seems that my old neighbor to the south is exporting less Thomas Jefferson and more baggy pants and Miley Cirus. Even things that don’t necessarily originate in the good 'ol US of A often get rebranded in Hollywood and are exported via the latest blockbuster. A perfect example is Santa. The popular myth that Coca Cola turned the monk from Turkey red still holds fast with many but the influence the Americans have had on the figure the Dutch call Sinterklaas can’t be denied. Spanish cabalgatas de reyes (xmas parades) are far from being under threat but the fat man’s presence here in Spain grows every year. I’m always amazed at how easily Santa and the semi-autochthonous Reyes Magos coexist together in the minds of the great majority of Spanish children, but I suppose when you are getting presents from two sources, why ask questions? One holiday tradition that is particularly popular in the Anglo-Saxon world and that hasn’t really taken root here in Spain is the insistence on making New Year’s resolutions every year and then shouting them out to everyone who will listen. I guess I have seen some of the Spanish press taking AP lines and adapting them to the local market but they never really venture deeper than quitting smoking and improving your English. Reflection, while seemingly unpopular amongst the political class here, isn’t a bad thing and at times it can help when trying gain a clearer perspective on things to come...when bread and circuses no longer cut it. A new year lay ahead of us after more than half a decade of very hard times. There’s talk of brotes verdes (green shoots) but on the streets where I live and work, I only see the rain that continues to fall in Extremdura. It’s time to ask questions, and not about the provenance of Balthazar and crew nor whether Saint Nicolas is a CIA plot. Tough questions that uncover answers to why we’ve fallen so far need to be asked and a little more investigation into the who. Here’s to hoping the new year brings to Spain a little more Greenwald and Woodward and a little less American Idol.