Lluís Foix. 14 May 2021
PHOTO ALEX GARCIA HEMICICLO, PLENARY OF THE PARLIAMENT IN DIM LIGHT 2017/10/23 Own
Politics are the ideas, programs and management of the conflicting interests of citizens. Napoleon said that politics is destiny; Montaigne was talking about the men’s business; De Gaulle fought to save honor and Churchill defended freedom in his speeches and his actions. A democratic policy that gave good results is the one that F.D. Roosevelt ninety years ago, in a crisis similar to that experienced today in liberal democracies, which consisted of making education available to all, a decent wage for all workers and rebalancing the inequalities produced by savage capitalism that led to the cataclysm of 1929.
He was in the line of thought inspired by Adam Smith when he affirmed that “no society can prosper and be happy if the majority of its members are poor and unhappy.” The Rhenish social capitalism of the 1970s, the fruit of the pacts between Christian Democrats and Social Democrats, laid the foundations of the welfare state, the best European social contribution to civilization in the last century, as Chancellor Helmut Schmidt claimed.
Catalonia is not on the European map of opportunities, but of problems
Politics is inevitable and necessary to resolve the controversies of any society. When those responsible are not up to the task, they are fired and substitutes are sought. What happens when there are many months left before new elections are called? The attrition of those who are in charge of the country occurs until the polls send them home or to the opposition.
The situation becomes untenable when those who have to govern put their personal interests before something as simple as forming a government in agreement with the parliamentary majorities. This is what happens in Catalonia, where the three pro-independence parties have been publicly discussing for ninety days how to share power. It is not the fault of Madrid, the opposition or the hidden powers. They are exclusively responsible. Nobody deserves this contempt for the citizen, whether he has voted for them or not.
How long will we have to endure the irresponsibility of a few who harm everyone so much? The problem is that new elections, perhaps inevitable, will also result in a politically fragmented and intransigent society towards those who think differently. Catalonia is losing vigor, competitiveness and in Europe it is not on the map of opportunities, but of problems. It is possible to recover the illusion and the projects, but with other actors and new priorities.
https://www.lavanguardia.com/opinion/20210514/7453156/gobiernen-vayanse.html
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