Everything goes

The Spanish conservatives have lost the plot. Completely. Ever since, I hear you say, but even more so since the Madrid train bombings on 11-March-2004.

This week is the start of the trial of the accused of carrying out the 11-M train bombers.

In case you were not aware, the government of the day, (PP-conservatives) told the Spanish public that the terrorist atrocities were conducted by ETA. They even phoned up newspaper editors to make sure nobody made any mistake in their newspaper’s front page: the attacks were carried out by ETA was the official line and it was enforced across the Spanish mass media.

(I know, newspapers publishing whatever the government tells them, but this is Spain remember, not the UK or any other normal country with centuries of democratic tradition).

The Governement of day lied. The attacks were not carried out by ETA. There was no ETA link. It was a local Al-Qaida cell, in reprisal for the Spanish government decision to send troops to fight Bush&Blair’s illegal and ill-conceived war in Iraq.

I remember vividly the day of the attacks. All the main Spanish web sites (except a few honourable exceptions like Vilaweb, Avui and a couple of Basque newspapers that refused to yield to the government and compromise their integrity) pointed at ETA as the group behind the attacks. Even the pro-Labour Spanish press (El País, El Periodico) followed government instructions and printed in their editions that ETA was behind the attacks. However, 99.9% of the non-Spanish press pointed at Al-Qaida.
We were being duped, lied to, the press was being manipulated. Just like when Franco was in power. This is what the Spanish Right got wrong: they thought people were as stupid in 2004 as when it was 1972, when Franco, and Fraga (founder of the PP) were in power in fascist Spain. Alas, the internet made people realise that the government was blatantly lying.

The attacks happened on a Thursday. There were Spanish general elections on the following Sunday. Against all previous polls, and an Goebbelian-like manipulation of the public broadcaster, the ruling party was voted out of office. Because they deliberately lied to the public. Had they admitted the attacks were conducted by Islamic terrorists, they would probably have won the elections. But they chose to lie and to manipulate the media, because that’s what the Spanish Right, devoid of all morality and democratic ethos, is used to doing.

There are three mass media in Spain that still insist, against all credible evidence, that ETA was linked to the attacks. They are the only ones in the world.

- El Mundo newspaper.
- Cadena COPE radio network, owned by the Catholic Conference of Bishops.
- Telemadrid, regional TV network in the Madrid province, controlled by the PP, who is in charge of the regional administration in the province of Madrid.

All these three media outlets are outspoken supporters of the PP. The PP still claims that there is an ETA link to the attacks. Yet, there is not a shred of evidence of it.

But this is the level of depravity that the “People’s Party” has sunk to. Everything goes. Against the Catalans, the Basques or even against the Labour party. Anyone who is not fully behind the radical wing of the party is an enemy, and is treated as such. No surrender. No debate, no dialogue. Just the obliteration of the political opponent. Fraticide politics. Spanish politics.

That these people are still sitting in the European Parliament with other democratic conservative/liberal parties from around Europe is a disgrace. These bunch of neo-Francoist should sit in Brussels with the likes of the Polish nationalist parties, or the other far-right parties in the EU.

If Spain was a normal country, history would be ruthless with such despicable people. Spain is anything but, and so we are damned.