Another target for the rotten egg list, if ever there was one, is Jorge Valín. This guy, writing in the happily far-right-wing Spain Herald (whose John Aust I have grown to like, to a fashion) considers a poll result which has 75% of French youths expressing a desire to work in the civil service.
This 75 percent naively believes that employment is the same as wealth and production, but a job where you don’t do anything (and this is the aim of civil servants) adds no value to the community.
Well, Jorge, tell that to my future parents-in-law, who work hard at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Tell it to my father, who rose to a high rank in the Royal Navy and Royal Australian Navy. Tell it to the millions of people in Spain, Catalonia, the UK and rest of Europe who work hard every day in the service of their country. It doesn’t matter whether you come from a background which disapproves of a large civil service: you can’t dismiss a major sector of civil society as workshy scroungers.
If the quality of journalism has sunk so low at Libertad Digital, perhaps they ought to consider a witch-hunt for scroungers in their own offices. There must be thousands of readers out there thinking: “Write reactionary bullshit for a living? I could do that!”.
Briefly, an ignorant…
Yes, you are an ignorant. You are someone who still calls ETA “the Basque Separatists ETA”. ETA are terrorists, didn´t you know that?
Maybe you should you read less El PaÃs and more Jorge´s web site…
‘Terrorist’ is a very difficult word. If we apply it to ETA then we must also apply it to state agencies who operate in similar ways. Is it not accurate to describe ETA as separatists?
Anyhow, you (like many of my right-wing commenters) fail to answer the main charge: people seem to be able to write whatever they like for Libertad Digital and be sure it will be published. To insult all civil servants (including half of my family, nearly all of my fiancée’s family and countless thousands of other hard workers) is not just stupid and pathetic, it’s also an incredibly lazy piece of writing. If he were indiscriminately besmirching thousands of people for the colour of their skin, most people would be up in arms.
Still, Libertad Digital would probably publish it. ‘Like shit off a shovel’ is the phrase that springs to mind.
Oh and by the way ‘an ignorant’ doesn’t sound right.
Misusing words like that makes you look ignorant 😉
“Spain, Catalonia, the UK…”. Both Spain and UK are countries. Catalonia is a minor region of Spain.
Spain Herald is not a far-right web and Jorge ValÃn is well-known liberal. I think you have faliled in this post.
Terrorist is not a difficult word at all. If you have problems to decide whether someone is a terrorist, you have a serious moral problem. ETA are separatists AND terrorists. I don´t know whether you are living here in Spain or not. If you do, you should know by now.
I am not going to defend Jorge, because he is very capable of defending himself. But telling that someone´s job does not add value to the community is not an insult.
Smith, Addison: read my post again and then leave a comment if you wish. But try to stick to the topic… instead of just leaping in and blindly defending your bum-chum, Jorge.
Smith- ‘Catalonia is a minor region of Spain.’ – well you’ve made your opinions pretty clear on this one. In what sense is Catalonia a minor region. Which region is more ‘major’ than Catalonia? Besides, didn’t you know..? it’s officially a nation now!
Addison – I don’t like the word terrorism because it is an emotive term. Its use is generally intended to strike fear into peoples’ hearts, and I find it difficult to define it without including in that definition a whole range of organisations and state agencies. I don’t think it’s very constructive to use such emotive terms.
‘But telling that someone´s job does not add value to the community is not an insult’ – are you stupid or something? First of all, anyone with any self respect would certainly be insulted if they were told that. Secondly, that’s not exactly what Jorge wrote. He said that it is the aim of all civil servants to do nothing. That’s the insult.
You can’t defend Mr ValÃn because he’s wrong on this point. Simple. Now piss off and bother someone else.
haha… that told em!
Idiots.
There are lots of people that do NOT work very hard in the “service of their country”. And they won’t be fired. That’s why teenagers want to get a job “serving their country”.
I’m really sorry for the really sad history of your really hard-working parents… but “that’s not the point”.
“Civil jobs” do not add value: that’s the point. You haven’t argued anything at all… just “Jorge Valin is stupid, ask my parents”. C’mon, I’m sure you can do better than that (ask your girlfriend for help if you need).
(I don’t know why you put Catalonia in the same category as Spain or U.K… because “that makes you look ignorant”: Catalonia is not a nation: you should read a little about it… or people may call you liar!)
Tom, clearly you’re lying or you’re pretty ignorant in economics. Period.
Public servants are the antithesis of productive work. Obviously for you this is a personal matter (I mean your familiar relations, parents-in-law, father…) and you are defending the undefendable.
Additionally you need read more (much more) about Spain and Catalonian history. Again, Catalonia isn’t a nation!!
So, let me get this straight. The problem is whether we use the word “terrorism” or not. When ETA set a bomb in a Barcelona shopping center and killed 23 people, can we call that terrorism? Or is it too emotional for you?
“Now, piss off and bother someone else”. Uuh, classy.
It’s always interesting to note how quickly certain groups of commenters will move off topic and onto personal insults or patronising ‘advice’. Much like some weird bunch of Stalinists, they prefer character assassination over debating the material. It says a lot about the state of right wing thought in Spain (and how it has failed to evolve or mature significantly in the last thirty years) that this is still their main form of defence from a perceived threat. Note how quickly ‘Addison’ tries to move the debate onto terrorism and the Basque country. Note also ‘Vis a Vis’ assertion that I need to read ‘much more’ Spanish and Catalan history (why the division there, Vis a Vis? surely according to you, it’s all just Spanish history?).
Anyway, these comments are clearly off topic now (see my guidelines), so the post is closed. Thanks for expressing yourselves with what nearly amounts to literacy. You’re doing very well.