Flooding in Spain: Only the Working Class Can Save Ourselves from Capitalism and its Deadly Climate Crisis

 

SPAIN, October 29— “Murderers! Murderers!” hundreds of angry workers shouted at Spain’s King Felipe VI, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez (a Socialist) and regional governor Carlos Mazón. They were among other authorities visiting Paiporta, Valencia. This town was the hardest hit by massive flooding. Workers chanted “Shame on you!” for not sending immediate aid. The masses booed these authorities and threw mud at the King. Someone threw a punch at Sánchez, who had to be evacuated.

The flooding disaster was caused by an Isolated High-Altitude Depression (DANA). It affected several autonomous communities including Castilla y Leon, Andalusia, and Catalonia. But it was the Valencian community that suffered its most intense effects.

DANAs occur when cold air meets warm air, creating heavy rain clouds and potentially destructive storms. Their frequency is increasing due to global climate change.

This catastrophe has caused at least 220 deaths in Valencia alone. Material losses have not yet been quantified. Many lost everything: family members, cars, homes, pets. Farmers lost their entire harvest. The losses are astronomical.

In a matter of hours, towns like Utiel already had water up to three meters high, leaving all the workers in that town totally trapped in their buildings. Thousands more were trapped on roads in their cars. In Paiporta, the disaster was devastating. All the cars were piled up due to the push of the water current. It looked like a picture of an Armageddon.

The working class organized and mobilized to help and bring food and financial aid. Workers came from all over Spain and from other countries. Transportation workers used their trucks to transport clothes, water, and food for free. Workers with tractors removed the mudslides from the streets. Thousands of volunteers came with shovels and brooms to clean the buildings. People bringing lots of food traveled to Valencia to help.

Workers win when we unite. We just need leadership. In ICWP we fight against all the actions that destroy nature in exchange for profit and money. The capitalists, on the other hand, enslave us so they can have more profits and comforts.

We workers have the potential to change the individualistic ideology of the capitalist system to collective ideas. And to take actions that demonstrate that we do not need global bosses and markets that destroy nature and relationships between workers.

We workers need to organize ourselves and join the ICWP. Let’s fight every day to destroy capitalism. By organizing ourselves and thinking in new ways we can stop the destruction of nature that this system causes.

From all over the world we need all workers to unite and discuss the best way and the best time to build a communist world. That time is today. We believe, without a doubt, that as an internationalist party, with the communist philosophy of dialectical materialism, we can win.

Climate change is just one of the most abominable creations that the capitalist system imposes on us. Every profit-based industry does not care if nature suffers the consequences, and much less does it care if those affected are the workers. In Spain, as in any part of the world, pollution is our daily bread. And the capitalists only think about selling and making more money.

We can discuss scientific figures on how climate change can systematically destroy an ecosystem. But in the end, actions like extracting minerals from the earth and using fossil fuel poison rivers and entire environments. They kill all their fauna and have a direct impact on the health and food of the inhabitants of that environment.

The Amazonian rainforests in Brazil decreased by 25 million hectares between 2000 and 2013, all from companies extracting these resources to enrich themselves. That is what causes “natural” disasters that affect the entire world, only to enrich a few.

We do not need to destroy nature in order to have a better quality of life. We need a change of system where we can coexist with nature itself, taking care of it. This system is communism. We are building communism with an internationalist party, the International Communist Workers’ Party. Let’s all unite and fight to defeat this capitalist system that only destroys our nature and our environment!

Long Live Pachamama (Mother Earth)!

Long Live the Working Class!

Long Live Communism!

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