[Published on March 2009]Some of the family members who are organizing the homage this year for those leftists citizen�??s murdered by Franco have asked me to write a few lines to be read there. Eva and Tomas: you have given me a great gift.

I really liked the ad with the refreshments that asks the grandparent�??s advise to transmit it to the babies, I decided to invest the order into the subject and with a letter towards those republican grandparents who fought for a fair world, for a democratic world. I have also infringed upon the ad�??s song and I beg the readers of this blog toplay the song while reading this entry. Turn up the speakers.

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So many things have happened since you left. So many that you probably wouldn�??t recognize the world that surrounds us. Some of them have been horrifying, but others�?�others have been marvelous.

A letter to a leftists grandfather

Let me tell you a few things:

Is funny, because even if there are many differences, the world that you fought for seems to be the same one we live in today, in this country. For example, all children know how to read and write, however today they do it in very different styled notebooks, really;

And the workers? All workers have important rights: vacations, money if they loose their jobs, help to have their children, the opportunity of being paid while staying home with the baby after giving birth �?�

And universal social security!: the doctors take care and even operate all sick equally, without distinctions, without repairing its resources, with the best treatments. There is water and light in all the houses, and even a restrooms, in all of them! Also people have the right to fall in love time after time because one can marry multiple times!. It is attempted to terminate legislative trickery, with silence and fear of darkness, with no protection, of violence. Because of course, couples are obligated by the law to maintain a great amount of respect.

Religion would also surprise you. Freedom of religion exists!, and is guaranteed by the law!, and today it is a more private than public subject, more individualistic than collectivistic.

And in terms of sex? Ufff, believe me when I say that things have really changed, it has become more logical. Also between men, but this is something too complex to explain.

This does not mean that all has been done. All of this changes has its enemies always on the lookout. But they are pretty lonely. And there are not that many nor are they as courageous as we are.

Today, we don�??t work as much in the fields and many of the materials are brought from foreign lands. We can even travel to Germany, Italy, France and many more countries to work, without many papers.

Oh! And there is also a lot of foreigners who come here!. Now people from Africa, China, Morocco, India live here�?� Many people come, yes, because they wish to live in a country like ours! Some loose their lives trying. Yes. That is still a pending assignment.

So now you know, what you did was very beneficiary. 

PS:

In effect, as Follonero said to Franco in his tomb: the grandchild of a leftists republican is now president of the government.

[Published on November 2008] History is reserving some pages -of various GB- as we live in the moment but some do not seem to know its importance. We live in a moment of grandiose transformations. As Punset tells it, a Spanish divulging scientist, the moments we live around the age of 25 are fixated in our brain as the most important times of our life. Because of this, the other day on TV, I insinuated in a provocative manner that there are so many people left around from the 70s in nostalgia.

OPINION
Fernando Berlín the author of this blog, is the director of Radiocable.com and participates in various media in Spain. About me My email �?� ENGLISH EDITION HOME

But our revolution is other. In March 13 th , 2004 Spain saw the government of Jose Maria Aznar fall after a text message that ended with PASS IT ON. A simple message of 160 characters, sent by an anonymous citizen, convoked thousands of people to confront the electoral board. That protest was broadcasted alive by thousands of media across the world, and it contributed to a change in the elections. This could be considered as an important and innovative revolution, don�??t you think? Well then, even with all of this, is even bigger than that.

Yes, it was a revolution, but only as a local spectacle of dust, if placed next to what happens daily in the global phenomenon, Internet, Social Networks, blogs, facebook, youtube�?�

�??The protagonist of Cartuja de Parma, Fabricio, does not know if the battle he confronts is anecdotic or transcendent, winning or loosing. Or why they are there,�?� commented the prestigious Spanish journalist, Iñaki Gabilondo. Wars are only organized when they are spoken of.

A modest coffee shop of about 40 tables, called Café Gijón, turned into a very well-known center of intellectuals and artist after the Spanish civil war. Even today, there are those that still organize their social gatherings to try and imitate the past, ignoring that the spirit of Café Gijón left long ago. Today the Generation of the �??27 wouldn�??t unite there. They would fist do it via web.

Therefore, I will like to send a message to all of those who are sleeping: Wake up, you are all the protagonist of our revolution!

Café Gijon has turned to be a galaxy of blogs, in which a new society is fabricated and debated. Their authors are the protagonist of change, connecting to groups and interchange new idealisms. Washington Note, Taegan Goddard, John Amato,  Joshua Micah Marshall, Juan Cole, Markos Moulitsas, Chris Cillizza, are some of the thousands of names, in USA, that know and create the basis of change, each on its own territory. Only history will recognize their space.

Im leaving many, very important ones, because this phenomenon is galactic and with many followers. Luckily this is a post: you can make it yours, choose others on my blogroll and even include your own, -if it doesn�??t yet appear-, in contribution to this one, our community.

[Texto en español]

OPINION
Fernando Berlín the author of this blog, is the director of Radiocable.com and participates in various media in Spain. About me My email �?� ENGLISH EDITION HOME

[Published on Feb 2009] Among all the analysis around this crisis, the most seductive invitation comes from Iñaki Gabilondo, a great spanish journalist: �?? Let�??s give attention to the alter globalization groups�?�. Let�??s listen to them. They have been warning us from some time about what was coming to us, preaching in the desert. We have to listen to them, fundamentally, because, like Gabilondo explains, we are never going back to where we were. We need to anticipate our new destiny for the train has left the station forever.

In effect is true. Every country has invented its own lie. The USA and their trashy mortgages, their pyramidal operations, their shady ratings, while the rest of the countries implemented protectionisms proper of the XVI century. Aznar, for example, was able to reduce the unemployment from 22% to 11% in a short period thanks to, fundamentally, the brick sector. A bubble was created and Ponzi was worshiped. That was not an Spanish miracle, that was a makeup operation. The saved in Social protection and in emergency mechanisms and they did not even pay attention to the transport revolution, social migration, comunications revolution nor to the border disaperance. They were only celebrating everyday banquets. If we want to get out of this crisis and get back to place we were before, you may want to blow up that bubble again, and create whatever is left virgin, destroy the coastline, cheat the foreigner, look to the other side and pray waiting to see the greatest power to fix it all before it turns into a calamity. But it doesn�??t seem too rescannable, don�??t you think?

We will never go back to were we stood. Today it is important to think that the 11% of the construction workers unemployed, which qualifications are very concrete, can be assumed again by the job market, or by laws designed for the capital world. Won�??t be passed.

The good news is, however, that there are people that been doing this analysis for many years, warning us of their risk and arguing alternatives in the Social Forums of the entire world. There are names such as Ignacio Ramonet and his organization ATTAC, Susan George, Naomi Klein, and even Joseph Stiglitz, that have a certain idea of where the alerts are.

Because while a group of doctors try to revive the old dictator, there are many other people speaking of the succession. Guess who has more options in the future?

OPINION
Fernando Berlín the author of this blog, is the director of Radiocable.com and participates in various media in Spain. About me My email �?� ENGLISH EDITION HOME

[Published on March 2009]The economical analysis is apocalyptic. The powerful employ themselves to announce the danger we are confronting. An example: Francisco Gonzalez, BBVA president, whoes salary oscillates between 5-16 million dollars annually, -in function with the consulted sources- the other day it was permitted to ask for a great agreement before �??the national emergency�?� in which we are currently in.

And its call, like in other economical figures, is being a very efficient manner against social mobilization. Is a way of screaming �??everybody freeze.�?�

I did not think, however, that this capacity to create uneasiness was efficient among progressives.

Because we are the biggest historic opportunity the leftist party has ever had to change the model, to look for a new one, a more just one.

A few months ago, when the system was at the point of collapsing, even the most doubtful subjects speculated about the necessity to recreate capitalism. But now, that all has been settle, they breath calmly and they only speak of using bandages.

The economic system governing us has sustained big inequalities all around us. This is indisputable. The market can not be governed by itself, because ambition is its only fuel. That does not mean that everything in the world has been damaged. Of course there are many who are satisfied in this system! If I made 5 million euros a year, at the least, I would be happy as well. The same would be if I had a transgenic company, or a bank in a fiscal paradise, or an oil company, or a diamond mine, or even a coffee or cacao distributor�?�or many, many other things. The problem is that a big part of the system has built in unjust ways over thousands and thousands of people that suffer so we celebrate night after night our excesses. We are the bourgeois of the new global middle ages.

This system has been able to convince us of two traps. The first: that today many more individuals live better than with other models. That this is the best of the worst systems.

The second trap is that they have made us believe that we are all inspired to reach the highest levels. Under this illusion, this mirror, thousands of honest individuals contribute to injustice. They become divided, they are careless of the others suffering, they minimize it and are intoxicated with ambition and see change as an utopia.

And in this context one asks himself: Who will present an alternative? Will it be religion? Will it be the left party? The right party? Who will demand a change? Will it be the internet?

OPINION
Fernando Berlín the author of this blog, is the director of Radiocable.com and participates in various media in Spain. About me My email �?� ENGLISH EDITION HOME

«There are still margins left to define its role. Lets do it.   Lets be ambitious».

[Published on April 2009] The economical crises, the lack of global agreement in ethics and a morality that permits us coexist �??social, labor, religious �??and the extraordinary technological transformation and the communication which has provoked Internet, has put up in disaster the world�??s political system.

This way one can understand how to resolve the financial crisis, it has been said to �??reinvent capitalism�?� to �??inaugurate a new time�?� to come back to politics with capital letters.�?� Because the old responses �??the uncontrolled capital, the furious liberalism- have failed like communism failed, it has proven to be inefficient, proper in other eras.

The multilateralism and the political negation install like a new axiom.  But the multilateralism also has spines, it compels compromises, to realize cessations in defense for the greater good (everyday more common,) and often those compromises are painful.

In this new context is in the one Spain is seeing itself in the mind-frame to send more troops to Afghanistan.  To perish the petitions of the strongest.  Further than these anecdotic and concrete topics, the theme places us in debate: Which role should Spain play in this new world? Because in my opinion, still today there are many margins left to define its role.

Spain has initiated ambitious paths in the ambit of universal justice and Human Rights.  Is true, however, as we have pointed out in the past, that when it has tried, the invisible hand of impunity appears.  However it is an inspirational role to play.  It has it all: it is social, democratic, just and pedagogic.

Therefore, if Spain is going to redefine its global role, it should play the role of judge.  Let�??s leave the position of police to be claimed by others.  Let�??s take advantage of the historical conjunction to plant the seeds of ethics for the future.

OPINION
Fernando Berlín the author of this blog, is the director of Radiocable.com and participates in various media in Spain. About me My email �?� ENGLISH EDITION HOME

[Published on April 2009] Those who follow-up on twitter or facebook know that in the past few months, I have been fixing an abandoned house in the middle of the forest. The place is 5 kilometers of the village closest to a forgotten dirt path.

We take short trips on Saturday or Sunday after the Ser program. Some days, if the pressure is high, I have closed down my computer and gone mid week to fight against the weeds, to escape the world. There is no electricity and barely any cell phone coverage maintains one connected to the exterior.

However, yesterday something very curious happened to us. I was with my youngest sister Virginia and night was falling. The place is truly formidable when it darkens because thousand of little creatures fight to impose their wailings. But after we picked up and prepared to leave, the car wouldn�??t start. Not even a pilot would start. The battery was completely drained. The Civic, decided to spend the night there.

Obviously in Spain, in the middle of the 21st century this is not a problem, we called our friend Nico Gª who already knew the place, to pick us up and because he is such a cool guy he stopped by. But during that one hour in complete darkness, seating next to a camping gas, I had the opportunity to use my two little coverage lines and connect to Twitter and post a surrealist message in facebook:

�??�?�in the middle of the forest. My car battery has drained, haha I have to call my friend Nico to stop by!!! S.O.S haha about 20 hours ago�?�

Well, the real interesting story is the messages it triggered. Suddenly, in the middle of nothing, we weren�??t just two, we were so many more!:

�??the night is a good mentor to the forest. Good Luck!�?� -said Felix Lavilla; �??If you need any sort of help give notice. I don�??t have a car. But if there is a need to call a tow truck or something�?�hope is not too much! Cheers�?� -Juanma; �??Wow, you even have cell phone coverage with GPRS and everything! We are so advanced in these Spanish forests! :)�?�-said coolkamio with a lot of reason.In Facebook the response was fantastic: Lisa, Juan Bedel, Jose Marcos, Carmen, David, Jose Esteban, Ramon Villaplana, Marga who with a lot of reason later said: �??Forest don�??t like cars!! Next time walk Fer!�?� or Jacinto who said:

�??Prodigious: to be left without a car battery in the middle of the forest and to be able to cry it out via social media�?�The works of technology and the modern world!.�?�

And also Gemma, and Gracia: �??Maybe you�??ll find the girl at the curb�?�hahahaa�?� -said, and even my sister Macarena: �??Incredible Fer!!!!!! Good Luck!!! Thank god there were no wolfs! Kisses,�?� also Maria Jose, Julia, Jordi, Monica!�?�

Well, this is only an interesting anecdote, one that I wanted to share through here, to give thanks and to conclude that in effect Twitter and Facebook are a light in the middle of the forest.