Spain is going through its lowest days since the COVID pandemic and before that since 11-M in 2004. A society that once again discovers that its political class is essentially a parasitic political class more interested in the story and in how to be in the photo than in serving the people. You know, generalizations are by definition unfair and there are many local politicians dedicated to their people, because parasitism increases as they climb the ranks in national politics, reaching the crème de la crème of that fetid junk when it comes to the great leaders of the political parties, many of them with profiles of sociopaths and psychopaths, which is one of the few psychological profiles that allows to withstand the wear and tear and extended energy in time that is required to live among so much moral filth. People without feelings or greatness to understand that there are things more important than the next electoral poll or power for the sake of power.
Yesterday, November 3, Sunday, the highest level political representation of the State arrived at the zero point of the tragedy, Paiporta. The king, the president of the government and the president of the Valencian Community. The people received them with shouts of murderers and mud balls. They probably wanted flowers after seeing how the French firefighters arrived before the army, which was the object of political battle to see which administration was portrayed when asking for help. The most unworthy of the presidents of the government we have had in democracy, fled like a coward. The king, whose paper monarchy is based solely on public perception (Isabel II of England dixit) had to continue, knowing that the local humiliation would be received with praise in the rest of the country for his dedication and for "showing his face on behalf of others". His business model was at stake. And, finally, Mazón, hidden with his repentant child's face behind the monarch's back to see if he could escape a mud ball.
People have rediscovered that the state is a necessary evil, but that the size and articulation of the same results in grotesque solutions, swings of responsibilities, hollow meetings and self-eating bureaucracies. This week the Ministry of Finance was pleased that they had increased collection by 8% compared to last year. People could celebrate that, if it were not because it is not translating into a better country, but the middle classes are increasingly depressed and can no longer access housing and have a life project, which is the worst of the scourges and the definitive deterioration of society in the long term (that long term to which politicians are myopic). The only thing that increases are the advisors and the advisors of the advisors of the politicians. Sánchez has almost 900 according to Newtral, which is a source of the left. It is not surprising that among so many crossed opinions they are paralyzed to make the most elementary decisions when circumstances require it: to send the army from day one to help in this unfortunate tragedy, regardless of which administration determines what level of alert is being, whether in the damn level 2 or 3, levels and numbers that nobody cares about.
There are people blaming climate change for the disaster, which is a kind of involution in the history of man, as when disasters were blamed on the gods. Of course there is climate change and of course there is anthropogenic climate change, but the disaster in Valencia is above all a political disaster of manual. Let me explain. Since always, that is, cyclically there have been great floods in those lands and so they have been recorded since these things are written. From the great flood of 1321 until that of 1957, great floods occurred in Valencia every 27.67 years on average. In the last one of great size, that of 1957, the course of the Turia was diverted to the south so that it would not devastate the city again.
And what has happened with the great flood of 2024? It has been known for a long time that the entire ravine of Poyo, through which this flood has run and which is part of the region of l'Horta sud, was a danger, a time bomb that would explode one day. I didn't know it and I'm from Lanzarote and it doesn't rain here! Those from there and the high-level politicians in charge of the matter knew it. Very anciently all that mattered little, because in that ravine there was little population, but in recent decades the towns of that basin experienced a great growth and the politicians in charge of the subject knew of said danger. They knew it, they had a plan to prevent it that was the Cheste dam project, but in 2005 the Zapatero government discarded it when it repealed the National Hydrological Plan.
And why was a specific project discarded that served to save lives in a high-risk area where historically there have been floods? Because politicians lack long-term vision and a country strategy and only live to survive with tactics in the short political cycle that lasts 4 years, from election to election. Because the long term is an abstraction that does not give votes and everything that is done is done only to the heat and demagogy of the latest news.
Let's not blame the sky for what is really a tragedy that has its roots in human stupidity. Let's not insult the gods.