The Red Wedding is a traumatic event that marks for many the most important dramatic moment in the A Song of Ice and Fire saga, or in its television version, “Game of Thrones.” It happens in the third book of the series, A Storm of Swords, and is the culmination of the revenge of the Frey family, allied with the evil Lannisters, against the protagonists of the saga, the Starks. I know that in Game of Thrones things are always a little more complex than “the good guys and the bad guys”, but I simplify to understand each other.
The Freys are a family of little power that, however, controls a key territory in the development of the war between the Starks and the Lannisters. Control of that territory is a strategic advantage that gives the Frey family capital importance. Despite their relative little weight in the group of great noble families of the Seven Kingdoms, thanks to this strategic control, the Freys have survived by marrying their daughters to nobles from other houses. That is the agreement they reach with Robb Stark, leader of the Stark family. They allow him control of that key area for the war and he marries one of Lord Frey’s daughters. An agreement that Robb breaks by marrying another woman. Consequently, Walder Frey, leader of the house, organizes a second wedding to which he invites Robb and, once there, murders him, his mother, his wife and several other members of the Stark family.
Yeah, well, but… what does all this have to do with taxes?
This week an ambitious tax reform was approved in the Congress of Deputies with measures such as 15% of personal income tax for large multinationals, raising the contribution on incomes of more than 300,000 euros by three percentage points or maintaining the income tax indefinitely. banking. That falls on the credit side, along with some other things like changing the way intermittent cultural workers are taxed or raising taxes on luxury products. On the debit side would be the tax on energy companies, which was approved temporarily during the previous legislature and has not been made permanent due to the opposition of Junts and the PNV, the taxation of SOCIMIS, which has not been able to be changed or the Diesel tax, a key measure for the energy transition and which has fallen with the vote against Podemos and the abstention of the BNG.
The final result, however, is quite satisfactory. In some aspects, more ambitious than what was achieved in the previous legislature with more progressive majorities in the chamber.
However, throughout this week we have experienced a kind of narrative “Red Wedding”. While a very complex negotiation was developing within the majority of the investiture, apocalyptic stories were taking over. The tax reform seemed to be a devolutionary piece of shit, a gift to Together and the PNVthe proof of the paralysis and incapacity of the PSOE-Sumar government, etc, etc.
All those narratives have evaporated when various types have been achieved according to the forces of the investiture and then the terrible milestone has become a fabulous thing, always thanks to the contribution of each person. It is legitimate that every political force wants to sell its victories, but it is not possible that barbarism and civilization were so close. It is not possible that nothing and everything were a meeting away. Yes it was. Either there wasn’t so much heaven, or there never was so much hell.
What this always outward performativity seems to indicate is the need to maximize the weight that each political organization has in the agreement, put pressure in the middle of the negotiations or justify possible disbandments to others and others. When reading Game of Thrones, everyone conveniently forgets that, while the Freys’ action is savage and disproportionate, cruel and mean, the pacts they had made are as pacts as any other and breaking them always comes at some cost. The other thing we tend to forget is that, in general, we always believe we are the Starks of our own story, and it doesn’t occur to us that maybe, just maybe, sometimes we are the Freys. Or the Lannisters.
The Red Wedding is the maximum expression of uncivil barbarism, of war in its starkest form. It’s also an epic, terrible moment that everyone remembers. The civilization that allows us to get up every morning, the one that separates us from the Trumpsthe Help, the Mazons and the Mileisis made of opposite materials. Very unepic materials.
Civilization, which is nothing more than raising the tax on a multinational to pay for public education or healthcare, is manufactured with agreements that are always less ambitious than we would like, always imperfect, dependent on changing majorities and with crossed interests.
They are always partial, incomplete and fragile agreements and proposals, but at the same time they are the only thing that separates us from the horror of war, from the end of mediations, from “the world is the way it is because of my balls.” Civilization is made up of infinite meetings that never live up to what we dreamed of before entering them.
And there is a moment where it is easy to lose perspective. Where the simple thing is that crossed vetoes, lack of patience, short-handedness, the desire for epic or looking good with the movie that you have created that your parish creates, whatever it may be, can make that fragile civilization crumble. a blood wedding returns.
But while Spain is governed to raise taxes on the rich, a form of government that is beginning to be indistinguishable from fascism waits to take possession of the United States government, the German government is breaking down and the extreme right is showing its paw there. as in France, where he already held the investiture of the candidate of Macron and the European Union already has the extreme right in its government structures.
Maybe we are one small step between heaven and hell. Therefore, as Italo Calvino said, it is up to us to protect what is not hell in hell and give it time and space. Even if it is fragile and a little more boring.
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