This Just In: Spanish Socialists Join Generallissimo Francisco Franco
The only thing I love more than seeing socialists clobbered at the polls is thinking about how much it must hurt over there at the Guardian to have to report the details:
Spain's ruling Socialists have suffered stinging losses in local and regional elections and now face a balancing act between voter anger over high unemployment and investor demands for strict austerity measures.
A week of protests by Spaniards fed up with the stagnant economy and the EU's highest jobless rate preceded Sunday's elections, which left the Socialists out of power in most of the country's cities and almost all the 17 autonomous regions.
They were wiped out. It was their worst showing since Franco died. They lost everything--Seville, Barcelona, even Catalonia. The headlines are reading "trounced," "thrashed," "obliterated."
Zapatero was, obviously, gloomy. "Today, without doubt, they expressed their discontent," he said.
So, let's all recall how we got here, shall we? And for special Schadenfreude, let's read the Independent admitting it:
When Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero took power seven years ago, he and his Socialist Workers Party set out to perfect the welfare state in Spain. The goal was to equal – or even surpass – lavish social protections that have long been the rule in Spain’s Western European neighbours.
True to his socialist principles and riding an economic boom, Zapatero raised the minimum wage and extended health insurance to cover everything from sniffles to sex-changes. He made scholarships available for all. Young adults got rent subsidies called “emancipation” money. Mothers got $3 500 (R24 200) for the birth of a child, toddlers attended free nurseries and the elderly won stipends to finance nursing care.
How times have changed.
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Comments :
Mar '11
Re: This Just In: Spanish Socialists Join Generallissimo Francisco Franco
Catalonia ... is out? Catalonia is out?
Clearly, Zappy didn't raise the minimum wage high enough. One has to spend even more of other peoples' money if one is going to bring the Socialist Utopia to life.
Fixing the mess is going to be hard.
Re: This Just In: Spanish Socialists Join Generallissimo Francisco Franco
Yep! Homage to Catalonia.
Oct '10
Re: This Just In: Spanish Socialists Join Generallissimo Francisco Franco
Is the Popular Party led by the same statists that govern across Europe? If yes, then the Socialists will be back. More than any governing principle, the European Union and its client national governments are in the hands of control-freak cliques. For example, the cozy rivalry between Messieurs Sarkozy and Strauss-Kahn tells you all you need to know about European democracy. Oh sure, one would campaign aggressively against the other, but Monsieur Sarkozy apparently was quite content to have a socialist running the IMF as long as he kept his pants on in public. Scandal, not vapid policy, was Monsieur Sarkozy's primary concern. Keeping friends close and enemies closer still has turned European democracy into oligarchy.
Mar '11
Re: This Just In: Spanish Socialists Join Generallissimo Francisco Franco
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
Yep! Homage to Catalonia. · May 23 at 4:17am
My favorite George Orwell book. Animal Farm and 1984 were assigned reading at some point, so I didn't get to it until much later.
Oct '10
Re: This Just In: Spanish Socialists Join Generallissimo Francisco Franco
Gosh, can't WE have some of these fine guarantees and protections? Is this not what we were hoping to change - to eliminate life's vicissitudes and cast us all on an even-footed mediocracy?
Dec '10
Re: This Just In: Spanish Socialists Join Generallissimo Francisco Franco
I have to say that one thing in that litany of welfare state subsidies struck me -- the baby subsidy. At this point, I don't think European countries do this for welfare reasons, they do it for demographic reasons.
The birth rate in Spain is about 1.5. Low even for Europe.
Re: This Just In: Spanish Socialists Join Generallissimo Francisco Franco
Drat. "Homage to Catalonia" already got used.
Thanks for noting this, Claire. The European dream--a fantasy going back, more or less, to the fall of Rome, as you noted in a post a few days ago--seems well and truly doomed.
I confess, though, that I'd feel a lot happier if I those Spaniards were protesting on behalf of personal liberties, not throwing a tantrum because the country is too broke to continue giving them handouts. If only all this were to create an opportunity for the People's Party, the Partido Popular, former Prime Minister Aznar's conservative party, to introduce free market reforms.
Now I'm the one doing the fantasizing.
Anyway, Viva Espana, what's left of it.
Edited on May 23, 2011 at 9:30pm