Twitteretter

We have a saying in Spain, ‘no hay dos sin tres’. Something like ‘all things come in threes’. I had to write previously about the rights to unionise and demonstrate. Sadly, the attack on fundamental democratic rights we are experiencing seems to also come in threes, as illustrated by Republican Party efforts in Georgia to restrict the right to vote, in a reaction to inexistent voting fraud the Republicans themselves invented. The challenge with democracy is that it is the only political system that tolerates the use of its institutions by those aiming to destroy it. That is both its unique strength and value, that total inclusiveness, and its biggest weakness, which makes it reliant on protection by its citizens to survive. It is no coincidence all these things are happening simultaneously and perpetrated by the international conservative movement. The attack on our democracy is much more orchestrated and organised than we may think, and it won’t do for us to sleepwalk into its demise ...

We are hearing that Joe Biden’s administration is planning to legalise 11 million immigrants who currently have no papers. This is a huge decision and it may be met with consternation by many in the US, preoccupied with controlling immigration. However, for those I have some words of comfort, which they will, most likely, ignore. The US, and many other countries, built their prosperity precisely at the time when immigration controls did not exist. Most people don’t realise this, but the World between 1860 and the I World War was a borderless World, where people could freely move between countries, without even a passport. This immigration built the US, providing badly needed labour, entrepreneurship and consumers which fuelled growth. Illegals are a reality, already in the US, in many cases for years, already working on the economy and contributing, as they are needed. The only problem with them is that they are illegal, which is exactly what Biden’s administration seems to want to fix...

Donald Trump has been acquitted, yet again, at his second impeachment trial. The Republican party has, with some honourable exceptions, chosen to appease the Trump voter base, to not alienate them. They have not exonerated Trump, but hidden behind a technicality, their opinion that an ex president cannot be impeached. They have, again, put party before country. In trying to avoid short term electoral damage, they have set a clear precedent for the next wannabe dictator. It is worth taking the risk of trying to destroy democracy, so long as your opposition does not have a two third majority in the Senate. Worst case, if your coup d’etat fails, you just have to decamp, for a while, to a golfing resort in Florida, letting matters cool down before possibly returning, for a second, perfected attack. The Republican party is hoping the courts will wash their soiled laundry, so they can keep their hands clean. Let the judges do what those making the laws will not. It is a dereliction of duty L...

This is a question I thought I would never find myself asking. Let me be clear, of course I am not. I’ve been looking forward to Trump going away for over four years. So, why the question? I’ve noticed that, with Trump gone, my interest in US politics has dwindled, against my best judgment. Trump’s presidency worked in the same way as horror movies, keeping its shocked audience glued to the screen, clutching the armchair, watching through their fingers, waiting for the next, imminent and predictable, but still compelling, horrible moment. I always succeeded at not getting drawn into horror, with the occasional high quality exception, Kubrick’s The Shining or Hitchcock’s Psycho. But, somehow, Trump grabbed my attention, kept me reluctantly watching, sunk in my virtual chair. In doing so, he sapped my appetite for US politics, leaving little for Biden. I will, I hope, recover it in due course, in the same way one returns to a light, well structured drama, days after a traumatic horror Le...

One day after Joe Biden’s inauguration, republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has issued articles of impeachment against him, based on debunked conspiracy theories of corrupt practices related to Hunter Biden’s business dealings and election fraud. The process is doomed to failure, given democrat control of House and Senate, but it is a timely reminder of the precarious position US democracy finds itself in after years of organised, meticulous attack. Greene is an affiliate of QAnon, a cult which believes a deranged narrative of politicians in power and captains of industry being child rapists, murderers and cannibals, akin to the narrative about Jews which took a similar cult to power in 1930s Germany, with well known global consequences. The problem is, she has been elected to congress on that ticket. Many may have thought, after Trump’s defeat, that US democracy had been saved, but we are not out of the woods yet, the election was a stay of execution, much work lies ahead ...

Donald Trump has issued his outgoing presidential pardons. Categorising the pardons can be quite informative about the mind of this president and his acolytes. A few rappers for illegal possession of firearms, I guess pandering for sympathy from their many followers. Many other black people incarcerated for the same crime remain unpardoned. Several fraudsters and embezzlers. Understandable, as this kind of behaviour is standard fayre for Trump himself. One pardon to a proven industrial secrets thief. In Trump’s mind, business is war, and in love and war, everything is allowed. Therefore, this is fair enough, if Google allowed this secret to be stolen from them, that is their problem and they should be afforded no legal protection. And finally, one for acting as an agent for a foreign government which, on the basis of significant evidence, Mr. Trump has done himself. You certainly cannot fault the guy for consistency, he pardons as he acts, which is his equivalent to do as you preach Le...

This is a Spanish word, coined by one of Spain’s most famous writers, Don Ramón María del Valle Inclán, at the start of the XX century (its first appearance, I believe, was in the great ‘Bohemian lights’). It is not easy to translate to English, something like distorted caricature of reality would be as close to the money as I can get. Valle Inclán used a metaphor, concave and convex mirrors, to describe what he perceived as the deformity of Spanish society at the time. It was brutal and beautiful. I can only imagine what he might have come up with, what metaphor he may have elicited, had he witnessed the events we have in the last few years. The systematic, short sighted destruction of the environment by many governments. The systematic, short sighted destruction of US democracy by its ruling party, the GOP, as they call themselves. The destruction of UK society and social rights by the Conservative government, with the complicity of UK workers. I somehow feel mirrors would not cut it...

Following events at Capitol Hill on confirmation day, as well as the many misdemeanours in which the US President has engaged in beforehand, both during and before his presidency, Joe Biden is being asked to consider a presidential pardon in the fashion of that issued by Gerald Ford to Richard Nixon. The rationale is to heal the nation and allow it to move on, united. This would be a grave error. Trying Mr. Trump, both in impeachment proceedings and likely a number of times in the courts, is not about retribution, but about justice and morality. A pardon would give him and those of his nature carte blanche , send the message that democracy, rule of law and society’s integrity are fair game and can be attacked with impunity. Where Trump may have failed, others will succeed. I have written about appeasement before, and its historical failures. Trump has become what he is because he has, through life, got away with it (whatever ‘it’ was). Getting away with it again will not change him...

I woke up this morning to news that Donald Trump is refusing to pay Rudy Giuliani for his legal services during the last months of his presidency, when he has run up a bill of staggering proportions, combination of the former’s insistence in persevering with lost legal battles and the latter’s extortionate fees. This is not surprising, but rather the chronicle of a death foretold, to borrow a Garcia Marquez title. To paraphrase Albert Einstein, it is lunacy to expect results to change when all else remains the same. Mr. Trump does not pay, unless he really has to, for services or even taxes. He has built his alleged fortune and destroyed his reputation by following this simple method: Take goods and services, only pay after long protracted legal processes that not all suppliers can either afford or have the energy for. It works for many, like him, born into money and privilege. I will watch with interest, amusement and a cold beer that ultimate of pathetic battles, Trump vs Giuliani...

As Donald Trump was finally permanently banned by Twitter, after four years of testing the boundaries with the gusto of a rebellious teenager with over-permissive parents, a parody profile appeared with his photo on the handle, tweeting what the owner of the profile, in satiric tone, imagined an out of work Trump may be tweeting. Within one hour, the profile had over 7,000 followers and 66,000 retweets. Comedy is good, it can even be a tool for sanity and survival in these crazy times, but the fact that all it took was this imaginative impersonation to gain more followers than those accumulated over years of effort by people and organisations with serious, worthwhile messages and stories of import to tell reminds us of the opportunities we are losing with social media. They could be a forum for real debate, democratic engagement, information or even education, but the substance is completely lost in the cacophony of inconsequential nonsense that many, in their escapism, seem to prefer...

The title sentence is probably the best known in the outstanding bibliography of George Orwell. I have borrowed it from him to reflect on recent events at the Capitol. An angry, aggressive mob forced its way into the seat of the country’s legislative chambers, aiming to, at least, protest, at best, from their perspective, overturn the outcome of the democratic elections held in their country a couple of months before. The act they engaged in is clearly typified in law as terrorism and rebellion, two very serious crimes. However, they did so with impunity, with little consequence, for the great majority of perpetrators. Their race and political views protected them from police violence. Had their race and views been different and their actions the same, the consequences to them and the violence of the security forces reaction would have been much graver. This difference is Orwellian, an adjective we have come to use to describe oppressive, dystopic, unequal and unjust societies  Len...

I am trying to find the right nouns to describe my reaction when hearing those who abetted and supported Donald Trump for the last four years, and even for the two months following his electoral defeat, expressing shock and bemusement at the events at the Capitol a few days ago. It is not easy. Trump has been warning us that he was going to do just this for months. Social media are full of threads among his support base organising and threatening just this, if not worse. Nothing we have seen in the last few days came unannounced, on the contrary, it was just a partial realisation of ongoing threats. In the aftermath, many politicians and commentators are trying to distance themselves from the events, relinquish their responsibility, claiming they did not know it would come to this. In fact, it would be surprising if anything else had happened. We must urgently question how fit to lead a nation are those who wilfully ignore an obvious reality to fit facts to their wishes and biases ...

Winston Churchill had talents. Not as many as British folklore might claim, but significant. Maybe his greatest was his turn of phrase and ability to coin memorable quotes, such as: ‘An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last’.   Churchill was referring to how pre WWII allied policy fed the Nazi rise in Germany. He might well have told the same to Republican Senators during Donald Trump’s impeachment hearing. By absolving him regardless of evidence and with near unanimity, the GOP helped feed Trump’s narrative of being unjustly prosecuted by the establishment amongst his base. This is the same narrative fuelling his rigged election claims and refusal to concede, imbued with credibility by that failed and delegitimised impeachment process. And Republicans are appeasing him again, expecting a different outcome from the same behaviour, hoping Trump will suddenly abandon his narrative just like Chamberlain and Daladier hoped Hitler would suddenly start liking...

Hear me out on this. One way to understand religion is as a belief system built on the purported word of a superior authority, a god, mediated through an inner circle, the priesthood. For a religion to survive, when the word of its god and facts contradict each other, the followers of the religion must align with the former. This explains the prosecution of figures like Galileo, who did no more than state clearly observable facts. The god drives the narrative, describing reality in advance, providing a framework for confirmatory and complementary facts to slot into and for contradictory facts to be discarded as fabrication, misinterpretation or lie. Modern politicians are adept at driving the narrative, telling the story before it happens, providing interpretation guidelines for every ensuing fact. This is the reason why Trump started claiming election fraud weeks before the election happened, or why you can predict reality by expecting the opposite to anything stated by Michael Gove ...

You have to give it to Donald Trump on grounds of originality. His relentless attack on the institutions he presides over, with the apparent objective of dismantling them, based on their alleged corruption, is something democracy seems to not have planned for. Democracies have clear, outlined defence plans for attacks by foreign powers, attacks by their own military or security forces and even attacks by their citizens, known respectively as invasion, coup d’etat and revolution. But they may not have built in protections for attack by their own president and ruling party. This is an eventuality that the Founding Fathers, Jefferson, Washington, Adams or Franklin, could not have conceived of, after such hard fought democratic independence. If the president himself leads a revolution against his own regime, who will command the military to quash it? What is the Secret Service, entrusted with protecting president and presidency, to do when the former attacks the latter? A conundrum indeed...