I love anti-system people like Carles Riera, MP and leader of the CUP. They are the strongest proof that capitalism has no adversary. And that it will take centuries before the world changes in such a way that we find another way of doing things. I want to be an anti-system with the soul of a deputy in the Catalan Parliament, I want to corral constitutional disobedience, I want to have cadres (of Arran) who write a book with clauses for "occupying houses" as long as, of course, they don't occupy mine. The book is called Libreto de Okupacion (Booklet for Okupation), written to "combat the housing crisis among young people".

The fact of adopting an idea as a standard-bearer is so recurrent in our times that it doesn't surprise us. Especially if, as in the case of Riera, when he is asked (Tot es mou, TV3) what would happen if his house were occupied, he is speechless.

Carles Riera, the protagonist of the campaign, shared a poster with a young woman who is supposedly on the opposite bank. But who, it seems, lives in the same world: that of vulgar and pathetic demagogy. Her name is Tatiana Ballesteros, a Segovian who calls herself a writer and who, in her blog, claims to be compared to Ernest Hemingway. In the video she published this week, "Spain needs a captain", we see an upper-class girl with a hairdresser's hairstyle addressing politicians so that "they don't increase electricity in the middle of a cold snap". A chapter that sounds like a coup d'état and dictatorship, and no, it is not necessary.

Is it a coincidence that Carles Riera and Tatiana Ballesteros are the stars of the week in the news? No, it is not. They have demagogy so blatant at times that it seems to have become, at times, the leitmotiv of their career. They are ideas that could come to nothing, and yet they get hundreds of followers and hundreds of votes. And that has a lot to do with our times. There is a general inclination to the idea. And there is a total lack of prior criticism. But it is also full of ghosts who hide behind an idea to try to benefit themselves. Whether it's called Riera or Ballesteros. It´s a long list.

There is a total disproportion between what is said and what is done as a result. Tolstoy, after seeing the contradiction between his daily life and his ideology, decided to leave the luxuries and shut himself away with the peasants of Yasnaya Polyana. Shouldn't Riera offer his house to the squatters? He lacks the courage to become the Catalan Tolstoy.

Lately I find too many points in common with people who think they are very different.

Published at Diari de Girona 07/03/2021 and published here under the authorization of the author.

PH: Antonio Cansino