Normality in the Spanish state goes through the hegemony of the ultra-nationalist right, whether it's called PP, whether it's called Vox, or whether it's called a magistracy and powers of the state handed over to the cause of sostenella y no enmendalla, the vivan las caenas and all this rich tradition. If the answer is Spain, then what is the question?Political projects that can question the hegemony of black, monolithic, and self-devouring Spain (see octopuses, which eat themselves; see Goya's Saturn Devouring His Son) always require majorities that are difficult to maintain due to their own internal composition. Catalan independence, to have any strength, needs to bring together all the different forms of democratic independence: center-right, center-left, anti-capitalist, etc. And even then, to add other sovereignist and Catalanist forces. What was interesting about the "Procés" were mainly two things: on the one hand, the fact that it emerged from the bottom up, starting from the demonstration on July 10, 2010. On the other hand, having achieved this sum of forces from such different political cultures, united in the common objective of a referendum on self-determination. Since it was not achieved, there was a moral of defeat that led to succumbing to all self-destructive temptations, and now to the most self-destructive of all, which is to incorporate a false far-right independence into the equation. But that's another story.Regarding the governance of Spain, avoiding the crushing power of the right-wing (“stopping the far-right,” as it's commonly put, and also the right-wing that claims not to be so extreme but easily reaches government agreements with it, and forgive the wordplay) is perhaps even more difficult. It necessarily involves bringing the Spanish left-wing parties together with the wrongly named Catalan and Basque nationalisms (who is truly nationalist, and with all the tools at their disposal, is the Spanish state), and even with other “peripheries” like Galicia, the Valencian Country, the Balearic Islands, etc. The “Spanish left-wing parties,” evidently include the PSOE and the catch-all category often simplified with the expression “to the left of the PSOE.” There are many elements that clash here, but the most decisive is the historical, and mutual, animosity between Catalanism and the Spanish left-wing parties. In recent years, there have been two attempts to overcome this animosity: Sumar (now Moviment Sumar), in low spirits as seen at its assembly last weekend, and Rufián's project, about which nothing concrete can be said because it hasn't even started yet. So, everything remains, for now, within the realm of hypotheses, mistrust, and (historical) grudges. Curiously, the Spanish right-wing and far-right do not have so many problems identifying their adversaries, nor in presenting them as enemies to be defeated, dehumanizing them if necessary. Indeed: they are all those who never agree among themselves.

The history of Spanish state nationalism is a history of repressions against minorities. One of the most persistent repressive fronts is the linguistic one: if we were to print all the jurisprudence that has been generated —only in democracy: we don't need to go back to the Decree of Nova Planta— to deprotect Catalan and relegate it from social use, and to reinforce, on the contrary, the presence and use of Spanish, we would have paper to wallpaper the Supreme Court, the Constitutional Court, and the High Court of Justice of Catalonia. And with all certainty, there would still be some left over.The new ruling is from the Supreme Court, and it corrects the High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC), which has imposed with various rulings the 25% of Spanish in teaching hours, even —or especially— against the linguistic regulations set by the Generalitat. But the brand new ruling from the Supreme Court comes to say that the TSJC's efforts are not enough: now they also rule on the language in which the signage of schools and educational centers must be done. As they themselves say, “signage is not irrelevant”. The ruling states that school signage can be in the bilingual Spanish/Catalan version, but what is certain is that, at a minimum, it must be in Spanish. Argument to support this? “Spanish is the official language throughout Spain, which means it is a language that cannot be excluded from communications between public authorities and citizens". This is an argument that closely approaches the phrase that serves as the title of this article, a slogan that the Spanish state disseminated in Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, and the Valencian Community during the Franco dictatorship. It resembles it perhaps not so much in letter, but in spirit.That Spanish is “the official language throughout Spain”, as the ruling emphasizes, is not an accidental fact nor the fruit of divine grace. Without going back to historical explanations, Spanish is “the official language throughout Spain” because the Constitution of '78, in an article 3 that the ruling also cites, establishes it as such in the current democratic stage: Spanish is official throughout the Spanish state and it is a duty for Spanish citizens to know it, while “other languages” (not mentioned by name) are recognized the “right to be used” and to be “also official in their respective autonomous communities” (not co-official, this is a term that further diminishes the official presence of Catalan and which incomprehensibly many repeat like parrots).Therefore, the Constitution enshrines a principle of inequality that serves as a legal argument for a ruling that is ideological and political. There is in this ruling a component of the day and another of substance. Of the day: whoever can do it, let them do it, that is, a bombardment of rulings that could destabilize the Sánchez government through its relationship with Catalan partners, especially Junts. Of substance: an eternal nationalism whose raison d'être lies in the fight against diversity in all its forms. Also (perhaps especially) against linguistic and cultural diversity.

Jordi Aragonès, who is the candidate for mayor of Barcelona of the winning party of the CEO, the far-right Catalan Alliance, gave an interview a few days ago to the newspaper Abc, for the saying that those who do not gather do not resemble each other.The headline chosen by the newspaper founded by Torcuato Luca de Tena made an impact on social media: “We must not confront Catalans and Castilians, the common enemy is the caliphate”. The rest of the interview dealt with the proposals of Sílvia Orriols' party for the Catalan capital. Housing? Deregulation of the market and construction in abundance. Maragall or Pujol? Noucentisme, Catalonia city, order, discipline, daily mass and going to bed with the maids (this was not said in the interview, but it was inherent in the candidate's discourse). The interview also revealed that AC leaders have as much intention of leading Catalonia to independence as of sticking their fingers into an electrical socket. Independence is, for them, the carrot to attract unwary voters, an addition stuck to the front of the trumpist baseball cap. They coat it, the carrot, with an ethnicist stucco that does not make it more viable, but rather more toxic.In its ideological aspect (besides being a candidate for Barcelona, Jordi Aragonès says he is the party's ideologue), Aliança Catalana recovers – it's no news – a kind of petty-bourgeois fascism, what we could call a scared fascism. They are not proper fascists: they are little fascist shit, with intellectualist pretensions and the mental horizon of a village pious woman. They are the arrival station of a long itinerary of degradation that separatism has inflicted upon itself during almost ten years of giving rope to phantoms who impart lessons of resentful and mediocre patriotism. The leaders of AC aspire to play in the league of low or not so low intensity fascism, the kind that is starting to be strong enough in Europe (with figures like Meloni in Italy, Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla in Germany, or Marine Le Pen in France) to impose an aberration like the PEMA – the European Pact on Migration and Asylum, in force since June 12th – to send illegal immigrants to detention camps in non-EU countries. The unifying enemy cannot be Spain, precisely because it is a European and Catholic country, because they expect it to soon be governed by their Spanish counterparts (Vox and PP), and because, lo and behold, Catalonia continues to be part of it and they will certainly need to do some business there. The unifying enemy, therefore, will be the usual one: the poor. Among the poor, the immigrant. Among immigrants, the Moroccan, the Muslim, the Moor. The caliphate, which is secretly preparing the substitution of Catalans, another toxic carrot that appeals to fear and human misery, smeared with disinformation and aporophobia. In this, AC truly represents the old fascism of all time: racism, supremacism, the pointing out of the weak as an enemy and as a threat. It is objectively unpleasant to have to see this bad weed reborn. When the great substitution begins, let them be substituted first.

Feijóo has done it again and, when it seems that the winds are blowing in his favor (with the modest help of the judiciary, the Public Prosecutor's Office, the Civil Guard, the UCO, and a majority of Spanish and Spanish nationalist media, and of the Íbex-35), he manages to show that he is still capable of shooting himself in the foot. And with precision. This time he said that paid sick leave incentivizes the "cancer" of absenteeism and, therefore, fraud. Anti-fraud and anti-cancer meteorite. Seeing the dust raised, spokesperson Borja Sémper took to social media and everywhere else to try to clarify the message: it was worse, because in this case the message was Sémper himself. Recently, the most syrupy spokesperson for the extreme right had to take paid sick leave, precisely for cancer treatment. Subsequent attempts by the party to make it seem that Feijóo had not said what he had indeed said have also not been very useful.Garamendi and Sánchez Llibre –a quasi-comic pair of skinflints– pointed out that Feijóo demonstrates “sensitivity” to a problem that “employers” have been denouncing for some time. An exquisite sensitivity. It would be necessary to know, on the other hand, with more precision, which "employers" they are referring to. Are they the kind of employers, perhaps, who exploit undocumented immigrants while demanding a hard line against dinghy crossings? Those who force employees to be false self-employed? Those who refuse to pay overtime? Those who abuse employees in internships? The absentee worker is a being from the same galaxy as the squatter who takes your home when you go on holiday, the Catalan student who doesn't know how to speak Spanish, or the "moro" rapist of young white, Catholic, well-educated and well-fed girls. They are characters who are part of the imaginary of the current right-wing, created from half-truths and complete lies, which serve to fill the scary tales they tell in their public appearances, their rallies, their articles and discussions and podcasts and whatever else you want. In any case, from denouncing absenteeism at work to identifying labor rights as “a cancer”, and doing so from a place as identified with privilege and parasitism as the political class, there is a considerable distance.Feijóo claims to have the cure for this illness: a labor reform (not negotiated with the unions) that includes a cut in the salaries of workers who are on leave. It strongly recalls the labor reform promoted by his compatriot Rajoy, approved with the steamroller of the absolute majority to the cry of “Que se jodan”, uttered in Congress by the deputy Andreíta Fabra, daughter of the corrupt Carlos Fabra, the one from Castellón airport. Almost fifteen years have passed and the PP's doctrine on labor matters remains where it was: now, if anything, with the assumption that precariousness and growing inequalities (and that we live in a communist dictatorship, according to them) justify any violation of labor rights.

The Constitutional Court has admitted for processing an appeal from the Spanish government and has overturned the decision of the Balearic Government to repeal the law of democratic memory of the Balearic Islands, which was done last March with the votes of the PP and Vox. The repeal came after many back-and-forth discussions on this matter (it was among the one hundred and ten points of President Prohens' investiture agreement, which Vox made the PP pay for without forgiving a single one, and with interest) and after some scandal such as the one staged by the president of the Balearic Parliament, from Vox, who during a session in which democratic memory was precisely being debated, furiously tore up a photo of the Roges del Molinar, murdered by the Francoists in 1937. For the moment, the repeal remains provisionally without effect pending the TC's ruling on its more than probable unconstitutionality. This is important news, to which the entity Memòria de Mallorca, which works for the recognition of the victims of fascism on the island (where, contrary to what some still believe or want to believe, there was a true massacre of people executed in cold blood), reacted immediately, demanding that Prohens' executive apply the democratic memory law: for three years of the legislature, before repealing it, it has kept it in suspense and has avoided convening the commission responsible for its development. The TC's decision may also point the judicial path for the democratic memory laws of the Valencian Country and Aragon, also repealed by the PP-Vox binomial, following their denialist policies of Francoism's crimes.Vox has reacted to the news with its usual rhetoric of the communist dictatorship that Spain suffers and all that. More worrying is the PP's reaction: as Anna Mascaró explains in Ara Balears, sources from the parliamentary group of the Peperos say that they are fine with the repeal being suspended, because (as they said, they emphasize) they only voted in favor to have Vox's support to approve the budgets. To say this with so much carelessness and cynicism is truly frightening. Memory laws are among the most delicate and sensitive that a government can manage. They are also a touchstone of a government's democratic quality. To bargain with them with indifference and cold blood indicates that we are facing rulers of more than dubious democratic credibility, and they are not even aware of it.There are things that are better understood by comparison: if the French or German right were to agree not only to govern with the far-right (that alone is already unthinkable, because they practice the cordon sanitaire policy, which is naturally essential), but also to repeal memory laws to approve budgets, the scandal would be indescribable. By the way, to the wise people on duty who oblige us by scolding Mallorcans and Valencians for having PP and Vox governments: keep your paternalism, keep your arrogance, and stop making a fool of yourselves, please.

The Popular Party has a closet full of flags that it brings out into public debate as it finds they can be useful. It parades them, surrounds them with noise, forces false disjunctions and equally false debates with them, and then brings out the next one. It doesn't matter if it's immigration, Catalonia and the Catalan language, the territorial organization of the State, the fight against corruption, the various negations it carries with it, or the defense of what it calls the family unit. It all consists of managing to parade a flag, or several flags simultaneously, and making a racket.Now we are talking about the unborn conceived, a grotesque concept that aims for a fetus to be another member of the aforementioned family unit. In this case, the flag comes from the looms of Ayuso and Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, experts in victorious flags, who have already legislated on the matter in the Assembly of Madrid (what an ironic name, Assembly of Madrid). Vox also wants to dispute it, this flag, because it suits them very well: after all, anti-abortionism and the denial of women's reproductive rights occupy a prominent place in the fascist/neo-Francoist ideology they promote from Abascal's party. There is also a component of stale sexism and patriarchalism: the creature begins to exist from the moment the father impregnates the lucky mother, or perhaps already when the father unzips his fly. As if all this were not enough, it is a discourse that is also supported by the MAGA movement and Trumpism. Thus, the unborn conceived is a finding that is in tune with the spirit of the times and deserves the nihil obstat of the new fundamentalism. Oil in a crucible.The idea of counting an embryo as a family member, besides being macabre and aberrant, is also very accurate. A few weeks ago, at the proposal of Vox, the unborn concept was discussed in the Balearic Parliament – a avant-garde chamber, since it is presided over by an far-right hothead with the support of the PP – and it was already seen that the idea is so good that they should also include dead relatives within the family unit. Thus we would have the unborn concept and the deceased already buried: all together they would form an ideal and very complete family unit.It goes without saying that the law approved in the Community of Madrid under Ayuso's absolute majority, and which Feijóo promises to introduce into a state-wide law if he governs, represents an alarming regression in rights and freedoms. It also raises questions: how does the unborn conceptus reconcile with Vox's national priority? And with Aznar's national majority? More specifically: is an immigrant embryo a member of a family unit? And if so, does this family unit, which counts its fetuses, deserve to be part of the national majority and, therefore, receive privileges reserved for citizens of national priority? Vox has already answered no. Or perhaps someone doubted that, among embryos, there are also first and second class ones? The problem with parading so many flags at once is that they trip over each other and everything.

This Sunday, ten thousand people formed a large human chain on sa Ràpita beach, in Migjorn de Mallorca – the call was made by the entities GOB, Terraferida and Menys Turisme Més Vida –, to protest against the legislative changes recently introduced by the Balearic Government. In summary: through a controversial omnibus law, and also modifying the current agrarian law in the Balearic Islands with a series of provisions, up to 80% of Mallorca's territory is unprotected. The deregulation affects rural land, but also very important natural spaces, such as the es Trenc - Salobrar de Campos Natural Park (which was the reason for Sunday's protest), the Serra de Tramuntana or the islands of Cabrera and sa Dragonera, which also enjoy high levels of legislative protection. If the will of the current PP-Vox government goes ahead, the destruction of the island for the benefit of the interests of speculators, vulture funds and large international tourism companies will be a fact. For the citizens, there will be impoverishment, increased social inequalities, overcrowding, the housing emergency, coexistence problems and a destroyed Mediterranean island (except in the wealthy areas, of course).Es Trenc is an emblematic space. Its declaration as a natural park is one of the great historical victories of environmentalism, and the Mallorcan right has never been able to bear not having been able to turn that area into a focus of mass tourism in the style of Magaluf or s'Arenal. The new omnibus law would mean leaving up to 74,000 square meters of the natural park to the whim or will of the PP and Vox, through the approval of a simple decree via the governing council.The citizen reaction has been massive and forceful. It will be even more so at the large demonstration called for next July 26. Nervousness is noticeable on the part of the Mallorcan right. The works committee of the public radio and television chain, IB3, denounces that the information broadcast about the human chain was censored and manipulated: “The text provided by the team present at the event was directly modified by the news management,” reads the statement. Also that the bizarre appearance, during the reading of the protest manifesto, of the mayor of Campos, Francisca Porquer (who already declared that she would “sign” to suppress the Trenc Natural Park), was sought to be minimized in order to try to sabotage the event. In addition to the absurdity, what was seen there was a public authority trying to impede the right of free demonstration. An unusual and very serious fact, which gives a clear idea of the respect that the current PP has for the citizenry and for the very foundations of democracy.As we said, there will be more mobilizations. The PP, IB3, and the Balearic Government should – in addition to giving explanations and assuming responsibility for these shameful episodes – rectify and be on par with their interlocutors, who are the citizens of the Balearic Islands. It is doubtful, however, that they will do so: they have decided to govern with fascists.

The “national majority” for which José María Aznar demonstrated a few days ago has a fairly exact precedent during the Republic period in the CEDA, the Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Rights, which was led by José María Gil-Robles – a character whom we would now unhesitatingly label as far-right – and which bore great responsibility in the construction of a suffocating climate, extreme polarization and social fracture, in the Spain of the thirties. Does this sound familiar? The CEDA was a conglomerate of right-wing parties, with a larger force that set the pace (Acción Popular, with presence throughout Spain) and then a multitude of small forces that were of regional scope, focused on the domination of the rural areas (most of them had the word "agrario" in their name: Acción Agraria y Ciudadana de Cuenca, Acción Agraria Riojana, Acción Agraria de León, etc.). Afterwards, to obtain electoral benefits above all, an amalgam or mishmash of reactionary forces with others of a more liberal or center-right profile were added. Gil-Robles and his obscure clique formally accepted democracy, but in reality what they wanted was to overthrow it or turn it into a regime tailored to their interests and based on lifelong bossism. They were convinced that the state was theirs (or rather: that the state was them), they felt a profound allergy to any form of diversity – especially linguistic and cultural diversity – and they had a slogan that was a complete inventory of their priorities: "Religion, family, homeland, order, work, and property". When the Popular Front of the left won the elections of February 1936, the CEDA actively pressured the outgoing government to declare a state of war and prevent the left from coming to power. They maintained that a left-wing government would open the door to class struggle and Catalan and Basque separatism, and that all of this was "anti-Spain". The most direct electoral and ideological competitor that the CEDA eventually had, and where a large part of its electorate ended up, was the fascist party Falange Española y de las JONS.Does all this remind you of anything? LA CEDA got along well with a far-right party like Acción Española (led by José Calvo Sotelo, who was Minister of Finance under the dictator Primo de Rivera and uncle of the former President of the Spanish government, Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo) because they shared ultranationalism and national Catholicism (“For God and for Spain!”) and because they considered their political adversaries enemies of Spain who were leading it to perdition and ruin. This is precisely the doctrine that underpins Aznar's "national majority", in which, as a great novelty, elements from the "left" (they mean the PSOE) can find a place, provided they are like Emiliano García-Page. Aznar's (and Ayuso's and her dog Miguel Ángel Rodríguez's) message is that Feijóo is not on the right path, or does not have the necessary leadership, to build this national majority. As is often said, we will see what happens.

Good discoverers of garlic soup, our Mr. Esteve's Trumpists point out very excitedly that the tremendous inoperability shown by Venezuelan public services in facing the tragedy of the double earthquake is a direct consequence of the corruption of the Chavista regime. That Chavismo was, and is, corrupt to the bone is an unquestionable truth; we thank them for their clarity. It is a pity that the sharp analysts of the wretched right-wing forget that Venezuela has been a kind of protectorate of the USA and the Trump administration for half a year, which they usually find so admirable. The incursion of American troops and special forces on January 3 in Caracas was a real coup d'état and a wild and blatant violation of international law, in line with the role of global sheriff that Trump likes to play so much.In these six months, it's not that the Yankee government has done anything to free Venezuelans from the Chavista dictatorship: it's that it has maintained it just as it was, with the only difference being that we have heard nothing more about Nicolás Maduro (he is locked up, awaiting trial, at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York, or so they say) and that in his place is now his former vice president, Delcy Rodríguez. She and the rest of Chavismo remain intact in power, only in the role of US puppets, which Delcy Rodríguez and her colleagues do not care about at all because they completely disregard what dignity might be. The other big difference —the only fundamental difference— is that now Venezuela's oil is in the hands of the US: Venezuela has ceded up to about 50 million barrels of crude oil that Washington directly markets, with profits of about 2.8 billion dollars. (Trump must be credited with a funny moment, when he let María Corina Machado, idol of the Spanish and Catalan right, know that he did not count on her as president of the new/old government, a snub to which she responded by offering to share the Nobel Peace Prize, as if it were a hamburger with double bacon.)After being impetuously freed from the dictatorship, the Venezuelan citizenry continues to be as screwed, mocked, and helpless as ever. And when tragedy struck in the form of an earthquake, the US government's aid was crumbs (at least Venezuelans can be grateful they weren't sent J.D. Vance to make things even worse). We have learned —you can read it in this newspaper— that Trump has increased his personal fortune by 1.4 billion dollars during the first year of his return to the presidency, thanks to the cryptocurrency business. His emulator Milei also encouraged Argentinians to invest in a cryptocurrency, and it was a fraud. Since they imitate the MAGA movement down to the pattern on the curtains, it's only a matter of time before some of the brains in Spanish politics, after some economics master's degree, tries a crypto-scam from within the institutions. How bad is Chavismo.

That the Supreme Court now allows itself to question the regularization of immigrants carried out by the current government of Spain (the deadline to apply for it ended this Tuesday) tells us several things. The main one, that the high court, with a majority of magistrates from the PP and Vox, is not only well decided to continue the fight for the salvation of Spain through the persecution of left-wing corrupt individuals, or suspects, or those pointed out (“they must have done something”), but has also decided to challenge the policies of a democratically elected government. This is nothing new, but rather —we said yesterday— we have known this at least since the Constitutional Court's ruling against the Statute of Catalonia. Now, however, with Catalan independence movement undone, scattered and poisoned with discourses of hatred and supremacism/racism (defeated, therefore), they no longer need to deal with what the magistrates would call “territorial issues”. Instead, they now prefer to intervene in immigration policy: at every moment, their debate.The Supreme Court's “doubts” regarding the immigrant regularization process are raised by the requests submitted by two autonomous communities, Aragon and the Valencian Community, governed by the PP and Vox, or by the PP with the support of Vox. These are communities with rulers who maintain — they also say this in the Balearic Islands, for example — that the regularization of immigrants will cause employment and housing problems for Spaniards. It seems that mass tourism and uncontrolled speculation do not cause these kinds of problems; on the other hand, giving legal recognition to people who already live here — subjected to labor exploitation and immersed in the underground economy — does cause problems. Or perhaps it is that these parties have also realized that anti-immigration, hate, and racism/supremacism discourses indeed have a great following nowadays and they stubbornly embrace them. And with the legal certainty of the Supreme Court, which gladly accompanies them on this journey.To do so, the Supreme Court looks, and this is new, towards Europe. Traditionally, Spanish justice distrusts and speaks ill of European courts, and has blamed, insulted, and ridiculed them every time they have ruled in favor of separatists or exiled rappers. Now, however, they seek complicity and shelter under the protection of the EU's Migration and Asylum Pact, which came into force on June 12 and is one of the most shameful documents the Union has produced in its entire history. It can be attempted to justify with whatever subterfuges one wishes, but it is the EU giving itself the green light to create detention camps where immigrants will be abandoned to an uncertain and often fatal fate; yes: in non-EU countries, so that it is not seen so much. The Supreme Court uses this to deepen the drift of the Spanish state, according to which the courts take the reins of government as and when they see fit. The Migration and Asylum Pact (the name is already a sarcasm) is, for its part, a giant step for the EU towards its self-destruction.

In their desperation to obtain the support that will allow them to oust Pedro Sánchez from Moncloa, the Popular Party is now playing their particular tites, tites with Junts. PP leaders are aware that their policy regarding Catalonia has consisted not only of frontal ultranationalism (enriched by the radioactive energy of Vox, a partner and, in fact, a split from the PP itself), but also of a Catalanophobic populism that is profoundly divisive and, often, directly civil-war-like. Aware that these are not very good credentials to ask for Junts' votes, they have decided to resort to selective amnesia. The mantra is to look to the future and not "to the past", a remote place that, in the PP, they place between 2017 and 2018. This is what the "bad" and "good" spokespersons have said and repeated these days — the slimy Miguel Tellado and the wolf in sheep's clothing Borja Sémper — and also the curious anti-leader Núñez Feijóo, completely engrossed in his role as a man who can't find his glasses. piolins, the savage beatings by the police mob on October 1st, the más dura será la caída” from prosecutor Maza, the approval of Article 155 and the dismantling of Catalan self-government institutions one morning in the Senate, the farcical trial against the leaders of the Procés, with Rajoy and several ministers and high-ranking officials — as well as dozens of police officers — giving false testimony, the police and judicial persecution against Catalan independentists; all of this was, according to Sémper, "the useful and reasonable position that a state party must have".It is opportune, in any case, that the PP proposes this exercise of interested amnesia precisely when the Statute was approved twenty years ago. What times! This must be prehistory already, but the old people in the area still remember the PP's petition tables all over Spain asking for "a little signature against the Catalans”, the accusations —even then— of coup and terrorism, some not very veiled calls for military intervention, an avalanche of insults and of fakes xenophobic and supremacist against "Catalans" from media outlets controlled by the Spanish right and, needless to say, the lawsuit to the Constitutional Court that was resolved with the ruling that laminated a Statute voted by citizens and endorsed by the Parliament of Catalonia and the Spanish Courts, in a true —this one— judicial coup d'état that continues to this day with all the noise and fury we know well.In summary, the PP's hate speech against Catalonia and everything related to it has somewhat old roots and is a bit difficult to hide just because they are now willing to literally do anything for Junts' votes. On the Catalan side, it is urgent to get rid of the bullshit (whether Josep Pla or whoever said it) according to which there is nothing more similar to a right-wing Spaniard than a left-wing Spaniard. It's a joke to blow off steam at a supper, but above all it's a boomerang that always returns and makes a deeper and deeper cut.

The company Castilla Termal and the Alfauir City Council, in La Safor, have an urbanistic-touristic project that plans to convert the family crypt of Ausiàs March into a thermal water spa. In a spa, if you prefer. The crypt, in effect, is located in the monastery of Sant Jeroni de Cotalba, a jewel of the Duchy of Gandia, of the Crown of Aragon and of the Valencian Golden Age (which is the 15th century), a testament to the power of the Borja lineage, one of the most effervescent moments in the history of the Catalan Countries and Southern Europe. Now the Alfauir City Council and the Trénor family – who have owned it for more than a hundred years – have decided to give this unique place in the world a “hotel use”. They call it the Special Protection Plan for the Northern Sector (speculators, when they destroy something, do so by saying they are protecting it) and they are in a hurry to move it forward, so much so that the project's processing has entered a phase they call “acceleration”. The mayor, incidentally, is from Compromís, but he competes with the lifelong asphalt-laying and concrete-pouring right wing in his capacity to accelerate “strategic projects”. From a heritage, cultural, and historical point of view, if this project goes ahead (it is still in the exhibition phase), a true aberration will have been committed.It has been explained/denounced the other day, in an article in the newspaper Levante, by the poet Joan Deusa (don't miss his Ítaca arrasada, an excellent book), of the Saforíssims, a very bright poetic group that includes names like Maria Josep Escrivà, Àngels Gregori, Josep Lluís Roig, Isabel Canet Ferrer and Teresa Pascual. The master Josep Piera, who died recently and was also from Safor, was an enthusiastic reader of Ausiàs March. Piera wrote about March and about the Borjas (as Joan Francesc Mira has also done: this is an article full of great names from our culture) and would undoubtedly receive this news with the wry humor he used to defend himself from consternation. With wry humor and pain. In Sant Jeroni de Cotalba rested the remains of Alfons el Vell and a dozen members of the March family, including Ausiàs' father, Pere March; his deaf sister, Peirona, and the poet's two wives, Isabel Martorell (sister of Joanot Martorell, author of Tirant lo Blanc) and Joana Escorna. I have written 'rested' because nowadays these remains, after being cataloged, are kept at the University of Valencia, awaiting their return after the monastery chapel has been duly musealized. Instead, they want to build a luxury hotel with bubble pools there.Ausiàs March is one of the essential poets of Catalan literature and one of the most important in European culture during the transition between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Any verse of his is infinitely more important for the Valencian Country, Catalonia, and the Balearic Islands than our current constant verbosity that supposedly reflects on the being and non-being of the country. Any aggression towards his memory is an attack that we cannot allow. Perhaps the drama is having to remember it.

A fragment from a La 2 de RTVE program, presented by the renowned journalist Iñaki Gabilondo, has caused a sensation, concerning the imposition of Spanish on the original peoples of America, victims of the genocide perpetrated mainly by Spain and Portugal in what they still call "the conquest of the Indies", five centuries ago. In the program, titled La gran aventura de la lengua española, Gabilondo stated, verbatim, the following: “The Spanish conquest, contrary to what has been traditionally said and accepted, did not impose the learning of Spanish on the Amerindians [sic], nor was its use mandatory in any viceroyalty, captaincy, or audience of the New World [sic]. Nor did it prohibit the use of indigenous languages, but rather carried out the most important task of conservation and salvation that has occurred in the entire history of colonizations. A surprising finding, isn't it? But we tell you it is unquestionable”.It is a denialist discourse that we might expect more from Vox, Ayuso, or any commentator or influencer from the Spanish ultranationalist right. Hearing it from Gabilondo, a traditional example of equanimity, plurality, and progressive virtues, may cause rejection and disgust, but not exactly surprise. The construction of Spain as a national identity and as a nation-state (they are two different things, although they go together) has always shown a strong discomfort with its colonial past and, in particular, with the extermination of the indigenous peoples of America. This process of colonization and genocide had, as is logical, a linguistic policy that was particularly harsh against the languages of these peoples. Historians and linguists agree in calculating that hundreds of languages, more than a thousand, were completely abolished and eradicated from the American continent, in a massive linguisticide, to impose the use of Spanish and Portuguese. In Brazil alone, it is known that before colonization, about 1,300 languages were spoken, of which only about 300 currently survive. Regarding Spanish, the orders to teach it to "Amerindians," as Gabilondo says, especially to children, are documented in more than thirty royal charters (official provisions of the Spanish Crown) between 1550 and 1782.History is what it is and can no longer be corrected, some will say. It is true, but in the face of historical facts, various attitudes can be taken. When it comes to massacres and genocides, the reactionary and the patriot react with supremacism and with attempts to justify the unjustifiable (“we brought them civilization”). From the progressive, one should expect homage, even if belated, to the memory of the victims, and an official and complete request for forgiveness. Finally, there is the cynic, who denies the evidence (as Joan Carles I did in his day: “Spanish was never a language of imposition, but of encounter,” he said) and still wants to make us believe that it was not colonization, but a bargain. Surprising but unquestionable.

It has caused some scandal that Sabadell goalkeeper Diego Fuoli celebrated his team's promotion to the Second Division by singing, from the balcony of Sabadell City Hall, an insulting chant against Pedro Sánchez, chanted by some of the supporters in the square. The controversy is not fully understood: Fuoli and the singing fans were in the typical atmosphere so characteristic of football: celebration, relaxation, communion, healthy camaraderie, team spirit, shared enthusiasm, and a little – nothing, barely a spark – of spirits, narcotics, and testosterone. All without malice, naturally, because football does not understand politics. Football, as is well known, is the most important of unimportant things (a big smile on the face of whoever repeats this cliché).Fuoli's songs –which, curiously, are those of the Spanish right and far-right, but this is also a coincidence– are perfectly consistent with the general tone of most non-strictly sports news coming from football, and, what's more, in all its categories. From parents who encourage their children to kill the opponent or assault the referee (or who boastmastegots with other parents) in school or children's tournaments to players, fans, and management of high-level competitions who display unacceptable behavior both on and off the field, the parade of role models for young people is constant. Examples: Raúl Asencio (Real Madrid, prosecuted for two counts of invasion of privacy), Álvaro Aguado (exRCD Espanyol, processed for sexual assault), Santi Mina (ex Valencia CF, convicted of sexual abuse), Dani Alves (ex-Barça, for rape: convicted, imprisoned and finally acquitted). The list of rapists and sexual aggressors in the world of football could fill the length of a handful of articles like this one. The list of tax evasions and fraud would fill the entire newspaper. Alves, by the way, once out of prison has become an evangelical preacher, an honest way to spread the divine word. Messi visited Trump last March and they took some photos, both smiling. In Paris, the celebration of PSG's Champions League ended in street chaos, three deaths and nearly 800 arrests. FIFA and its president Gianni Infantino's complicity with totalitarian regimes, petrodictatorships, and – once again – Trump is blatant to the point of obscenity. These are the kind of news usually related to football (not to other sports, or not as much), often dismissed with a few jokes and some routine comments.We are all grown up and rather difficult to shock, and for that very reason, since the daily and obsessive nagging about football must be inevitable (due to the masses of money and people it moves, not the interest of the game itself), let's at least save ourselves the exclamations every time a footballer, a fan, or a director goes off the rails or directly commits a crime. Football is like that, indeed.

In an event in Madrid, Felipe VI called to “continue to trust in democracy, even in these somewhat dark days”. What a beacon, the Spanish royal house. It is true that, as in Bob Dylan's song, there is a long and black cloud descending upon all of us, the citizens of the West, and it is the black cloud of the far right and new fascisms. But every time the King of Spain praises democracy, he reminds us that his position and his very figure are not democratic. Representative democracy was born as a response to the absolutist Ancien Régime, of which monarchies were the political form par excellence. In the case of Felipe VI (and his father, Juan Carlos I), this contradiction is aggravated by the fact that they are heads of state by mandate of their predecessor, the dictator Francisco Franco – leader of one of the longest-lived and bloodiest dictatorships of the 20th century –, a maneuver that prevented the resumption of the republic – that one, yes – democratic republic that was aborted by the fascist and military coup of 1936, of which it will be ninety years on July 18th.If by "dark days" the monarch means to allude to political corruption, perhaps he would do well to start by looking at his own home. Juan Carlos I fled Spain to avoid having to answer for his fiscal crimes, and for six years he has lived in Abu Dhabi with a level of luxury that is evidently the same as what the character is accustomed to. Spanish justice (which, as Juan Carlos himself said, "is the same for everyone") shelved the cases against him with technicalities and excuses: the crimes had prescribed, or Juan Carlos was exonerated thanks to the shielding that the 1978 Constitution itself provides for his figure, an exaggerated protection to the point that Juan Carlos de Borbón is the only person mentioned by name and surname in the constitutional text (it is in article 57.1, which literally says: "The Crown of Spain is hereditary in the successors of H.M. Juan Carlos I of Bourbon, legitimate heir of the historic dynasty. Succession to the throne shall follow the regular order of primogeniture and representation, and the line anterior to the posterior shall always be preferred; in the same line, the closer degree to the more remote; in the same degree, the man to the woman, and in the same sex the older person to the younger", a wording that, as can be seen, is a real ode to democracy.In any case, since he insists on “trusting democracy”, it would be good for Felipe VI to remember that the United Arab Emirates, where his father resides, is a theocratic dictatorship that does not recognize human rights. And to mention more domestic matters, that the Marivent Palace in Mallorca, where he will soon go for the summer holidays, is actually the house that the artist Joan de Saridakis bequeathed to the Mallorcan citizens to be a cultural center open to everyone. Instead, it was plundered to turn it into the summer residence of the Spanish royal family.

Brexit is a representative example of how a demagogic idea (less than an idea, barely a slogan) can come to condition an old, stable, and respected democracy like the British one, and by extension, international politics. More than anything else, Brexit was a huge, colossal stupidity, and as happens with stupidities, its effects were — and still are — devastating. Keir Starmer became prime minister with a striking Labour absolute majority as has not been seen for a long time, and now abandons power mid-term, with discredit earned through hard work: to implement neoliberal policies, the others were already there, there was no need for a Labour politician as right-wing — and as anti-European — as the Tories themselves. Starmer has had to experience from power the explosion of the far-right in the United Kingdom, represented by Reform UK, Nigel Farage's party, an old populist who had always played a residual role in British politics and who now has solid possibilities of gaining power.Starmer's resignation has coincided with the conviction of former minister and former organization secretary of the PSOE, José Luis Ábalos, and the Spanish right sighs: may Pedro Sánchez follow the example of his colleague Starmer, who after all is also one of them, they say. Starmer was made to step down, as he himself has acknowledged, by his own party. The Spanish right wants to play Pedro Sánchez the trick we already know from Lula da Silva in Brazil or António Costa in Portugal: to set up a judicial siege around a president and his government (with true and false causes, and with an arbitrary and discretionary use of the justice administration) until the president in question resigns or ends up in prison (this would be the most desired outcome with Sánchez).Those who will go to prison, with sentences that surely must be adjusted to their crimes, are Ábalos and Koldo. The exemplary nature of the sentence should be celebrated, as well as the speed of the process: let's hope the example also applies to the PP, a party that according to the Gürtel sentence has been organized to commit crimes at least since 1988 and occupies headquarters paid for with black money, without anything happening. The two speeds, the different yardsticks: Kitchen has reached trial thirteen years late, and it seems that justice is also in no hurry with the Montoro case, of structural gravity for the powers of the state. Nothing that we do not know, on the other hand, since the offensive of the robes against the Process. Finally, the one who will not go to prison will be Víctor de Aldama, one of those characters who seem to be taken from Santiago Segura's films and who abound and move at high speed among the high powers of Madrid. A hustler, a betrayer, a liar, and an almost confessed swindler who gets away with the laughter of the triumphant scoundrel. "Thanks to justice," says the subject, with all the cynicism, and encourages "those who come behind" to follow his example. Spanish democracy does not need any Brexit, it creates it every day.

Aznar's “let him who can do it do it” has been taken so much to heart by the Spanish nationalist right that a real competition is underway among guardians of the fatherland's essences to see who can strike the hardest, and if possible, definitive blow, against the communist dictatorship of Pedro Sánchez, an accomplice of Basque terrorists and Catalan coup plotters. Judge Peinado, in particular, seems to feel called to the high mission of delivering a mortal blow to perfidious sanchismo before his own retirement arrives (in September). As is public and notorious, the way he has found to do so is a classic of fascism and mafias: attacking the relatives and closest people to the enemy, defaming them, humiliating them. Mission accomplished: Judge Peinado's investigation against Sánchez's wife, Begoña Gómez, is as extravagant, irresponsible, and unacceptable as one wishes, but she will no longer be able to avoid, for as many years as she lives, that when her name is mentioned someone will associate her (want to associate her) with corruption.With so much zeal they put into it, they not only commit a coup d'état, not as soft as it is sometimes called, which is perpetrated from the very institutions of the State, but they also manage to trample on each other, and this is more unusual and more ironic. Peinado, specifically, has managed to anger the police unions, for having withdrawn Begoña Gómez's passport with the suspicion that the escorts could help her flee. The National Police, accomplices of Sanchismo! Where will we end up. Both the National Police and the Civil Guard have worked overtime to save Spain from any fumanxú that could endanger its sacred unity, only to now be pointed out as possible accomplices in an eventual escape by Begoña Gómez, one of the protagonists of the most squalid misogynistic memes circulating in patriotic WhatsApp groups. The main police unions, Jupol and SUP, are beside themselves and Minister Marlaska has summoned them. That is to say, he asked the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) to act, and the CGPJ has reprimanded Peinado, even if with a pronounced internal division. That's fine, but it would have been better if they had clarified whether Peinado is guilty of malfeasance, as stated by former Supreme Court magistrate Martín Pallín. Or even better, whether the judicialization of politics is not a serious problem for the rule of law. The arachnid sense, however, warns us that corporatism will prevail and that these debates about the magistracy will not take place, at least not publicly. A prominent member of the judicial leadership summarized it quite well: let us be left alone.The Spanish right has become so inflamed that, in order to save Spain, it doesn't mind destroying it. “Nothing happens. When we return to power, which they usurped from us, we will fix the mess,” they tell themselves. The problem is that the rule of law does not break and repair at will. Meanwhile, amnesty – another scandal of a judiciary that refuses to apply current law – looms on the horizon of the end of the legislature.

Spanish politics is bogged down, who will unbog it? It will certainly not be Alberto Núñez Feijóo's PP, which fails to present itself as a governing alternative that convinces anyone, except the PP itself and the only interlocutor and partner it has left, Vox. The situation of the Spanish government oscillates between anxiety and shock, according to the news of each day, each week, and each month. Pedro Sánchez seems determined not to call early elections, or to resist doing so as much as possible, and one can doubt whether this attitude is due to firmness, calculation, or mere stubbornness. But Feijóo is not, in any case, a leader who presents himself with a response capable of generating enthusiasm in the face of the government's wear and tear. For a long time now, his only opposition task has consisted of directing exhortations to Sánchez's investiture partners. Sometimes he blames them, other times he insults them, much less often he hints at wanting to convince them (I won't say seduce them, so as not to sound sarcastic). To Junts and the PNB, in particular, he begs and begs again, like a mendicant friar of politics, to let him have their votes to carry out a motion of no confidence, even an instrumental motion, pretending to sideline Vox. Even so, he does not manage to get the Catalan or Basque right to give him their support. Not because Junts and PNB are particularly satisfied with Sánchez and his government (especially Junts, gripped by a conceptual discomfort that leads it to engage in the gesticulations that everyone already knows), but because they know that the Spanish right's proposal is no acceptable alternative. They know that, however bad the current situation is, the other is objectively worse. With a PP that openly says it is willing to govern with Vox (what else?), and with the demonstrated influence of the Spanish right over State powers such as the police and the judiciary, what may happen in the form of involution —and, if necessary, demolition— of Spanish democracy is easy to imagine and difficult to digest. It is also obvious that the first to suffer the consequences would be the Basques and the Catalans. Very mainly the Catalans.The distrust of Junts and PNB towards the PP also has to do, paradoxically if you will, with what has served the popular party to put Sánchez's government on the ropes: the judicialization of politics. At the beginning of the current legislature, the PP fell into the maneuver of labeling the left-wing government as "illegitimate" — no small matter — and Feijóo predicted a "calvary" for Sánchez that has been becoming a reality in chapters. The harmony between the PP and the patriotic justice is more than evident, and this causes the stalemate to be not only of the government, but of the institutional system. To dislodge the PSOE from power and access it themselves, they have literally perverted the rule of law: this is how they have gained positions and worn down Sánchez, yes, but they have also cornered themselves. Feijóo is six votes short of bringing down Sánchez, only six. And he doesn't get them. He can only beg for them.

These statements by Pete Hegseth that woke countries that do not want virile missiles, even though they spend much more than any reasonable figure on them. that they do not want virile missiles, even if they spend much more than any reasonable figure.chiringuitos del catalán, Hegseth could pass for one of those individuals that Vox has as spokespeople. The original MAGA end up resembling their provincial copies of the empire. This is because they all navigate, and dive, and feed, within the same putrid waters. A government that plays at confusing the eighty years of a president who falls asleep at public events with the 250th anniversary of the proclamation of independence, and does so with a spectacle of punches, blood and guts, is the exact reflection of those who here want to prevail the hatred of some citizens against others, and the ugliness of their bad taste.

Last Sunday, the newspaper Última Hora published a poll on the results of the elections in the Balearic Islands, which, if nothing changes, will be held in a year's time. The prediction was that the PP and Vox will be able to renew their joint government, and that they would do so with a reinforced majority: the PP would have a significant increase, from 25 to 28 seats (close to an absolute majority, which in the Balearic Islands is 30 deputies), and Vox would gain one seat and remain with 9, compared to the 8 it has now. The eco-sovereignist left of Més per Mallorca would remain with 4 seats, Més per Menorca would go from 2 to 3 seats, and Gent per Formentera would lose its current seat. But the one that would suffer the great defeat would be the PSOE, which has already announced that Francina Armengol will not be its candidate and which blames the wear and tear of socialists at the state level: it would fall from the current 18 deputies to 14. As is often said, it is only a poll, but everything indicates that the revalidation of the victory of the extreme right and the far-right is a done deal in the Balearic Islands.Naturally, those favored by the demographic winds immediately came out to boast, as reported by Ara Balears. In his peculiar way of expressing himself, the spokesperson for the Popular Party, Sebastià Sagreras, boasted that “there are only two possible scenarios, one in which the PP is close to an absolute majority and another in which it would approach an absolute majority, but would still have to reach agreements”. Sagreras doesn't realize that, in both scenarios, he says the same thing. However, no one takes away his greatest satisfaction: “The PSIB [acronym for the PSOE in the Balearic Islands] is sunk”. Very good, Sagreras.More disturbing is the assessment made of the survey by the spokesperson for Vox in the Parliament of the Balearic Islands, Manuela Cañadas, who admires and applauds the things her party has "achieved" by forcing the Popular Party to follow its discipline as partners/non-partners. Namely: "The repeal of the democratic memory law, the deregulation of rural and urban land to allow more construction, and the imposition of national priority for accessing social benefits". In other words: fascist denialism, wild real estate speculation taken to its ultimate consequences, and institutionalized racism. They are great advances, indeed. Cañadas forgot, because she must take it for granted, a frontal and constant attack against the Catalan language and public schools, which the PP has diligently carried out from the self-governing institutions.Now, however, the same PP of the Balearic Islands says that it considers the commitments acquired with Vox to be fulfilled in order to approve the budgets, and that they intend to distance themselves from them during this pre-election year. Comment from a Vox source to Ara Balears from a Vox source: “They want to appear as moderate centrists now that the legislature is ending, but it's a lie”. It cannot be summarized better. A conclusion as schematic as it is true: the PP will continue to sell (and will not lack buyers) the idea of being a liberal, moderate, and reformist center-right party. The reality is that it is and will continue to be the submissive partner of Vox. In the Balearic Islands and everywhere.