Posts
The
hours and days go by and the news engulfs us in a spiral of serious and
unyielding present hardships and even worse predictions for the future, rendering
us all astonished and stunned witnesses of everything that happens around us.
The
risk premium rises and falls and has become a familiar unknown constantly
mentioned to the relief of some and disappointment of others, without our
knowing exactly what or who it impacts. And the stock market falls and rebounds
in front of our very eyes, confused by budget cuts in sectors that should never
have been touched, while we observe in amazement the unexplained and
unexplainable deficits in financial institutions filled with money from the
public treasury by an inflexible mandate from the European Union, personified
in the German Chancellor.
The
policies imposed on us are fallacies”, wrote Valeriano Gómez in “El País”
(7.10.12), and several days later in that same newspaper Joaquín Estefanía, an
outstanding economist, pointed to National Competition Commission data that
indicates that “94% of public subsidies are for banking institutions”.
Our
citizens were astonished to see that when our country was ordered by the
Director General of the IMF to accelerate and grant addition time in which to
reduce our deficit, while the next day Ms. Merkel insisted that we have to slow
down and not increase the deadline by even one additional day… What happened to
the agreements so solemnly signed in Rome last June 22 under the leadership of
President Hollande and Chancellor Merkel, for the immediate launch of an
economic stimulus program for the equivalent of 1% of the European Union’s GDP?
Now we only have Hollande…
Paul
Krugman has called Europe’s austerity measures “crazy”. And, yes, it really
will be crazy when we overstep all of the red lines of our citizens’ capacity
for living in conditions of minimum dignity, in situations of conflict and unrest.
I insist that if there isn’t evolution we run the risk of provoking a
revolution. Like evictions, the flood of unemployment may just light the fuse.
Listen and then decide what is best for citizens as a whole. And explain
yourselves in Parliament, since you’re not only there to use your majority as a
bulldozer, but rather to reach agreements and understandings (that you have
rejected so often in the past).
Miguel
Ángel Aguilar was so right when he wrote that what Spanish citizens really need
right now is for someone to illuminate the future without succumbing to the
temptation –often unduly– of darkening the past.
But
when the sensation of “no-way-out” turns to panic is when we will be able to lift
our sights and contemplate the future: having been so foolish (swapping talent
for money!) not only are we forsaking our great challenges (the environment,
poverty, food, water, education and healthcare for all…) but we are also losing
our capacity to confront them. A state of panic and inertia because we also
know that without incentives the horizon with continue to become even more
bleak.
“Europe,
sad and downtrodden”, observed Josep Ramoneda in an excellent summary of the
situation. Radical changes are needed in security, economic union, fiscal
federation… Europe “downtrodden” while the United States, and even the United
Kingdom, are beginning to see the light.
I
have often written that the solution lies in a “Plan 2012-2020”, carefully
specifying the funds earmarked for the deficit, for creating jobs, improving
healthcare and education, for R&D+i, and for the necessary infrastructures
and construction to turn Spain into the California of Europe.
Allowing
our best talent to leave is a serious that is hardly reversible.
As Ignacio
Ramonet underscored in his article “Hot Autumn” published recently in “Le Monde
Diplomatique”, “there is something fundamental at stake: equal opportunity. For
example, health care is being privatized (i.e., transferred to the marketplace).
He concludes by saying that we must quickly rid ourselves of our “Eurocratic”
ties.
If
we join voices and efforts, citizen power is enormous. That’s why they keep us
distracted, silenced, submissive. Let’s react peacefully, but firmly. Let’s not
let panic overtake us.
Together
we can survive the present systemic crisis and invent a different future. Build
a democracy in which the parliamentary majority doesn’t refuse to listen and
takes into account all of the
citizens it governs, in which citizen power, virtually and in cyberspace,
expresses itself with specific proposals.
Let’s
quickly transcend this state of panic to achieve a state of genuine, serene and
audacious, social and fair democracy.
