Jose Vega, Independent Candidate for Congress in New York’s 15th Congressional District (the Bronx) issued a campaign statement on October 10 entitled “A Lesson From Spain: Dignity or Subjugation.” Vega was inspired by the spreading mass protests in Spain and other countries across Europe over the worsening quality of life confronted by most citizens in many ways, from housing to education to fuel. His statement intervenes into a similar sentiment increasingly sweeping the United States, and elevates it to the necessary top-down strategic understanding of the crisis.
The trigger for protests in Spain was the Sept. 23 eviction from her Madrid apartment of wheelchair bound, 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal after her rent was suddenly increased by 230%. She had lived there for over 70 years. While being carried out of her home on a stretcher, she implored citizens to fight, and the slogan became “We are all Maricarmen.” While the legal battle was won, the stress killed her. Vega noted: This was not an inevitable death; it was murder caused by depraved indifference.
The candidate further insisted that the issue isn’t particular to Sra. Abascal, or Spain, but rather a more universal fight. He states that, “Yes, ‘we are all Maricarmen.’ We, too, wherever we may be in the world, are victims of depraved indifference. Many living in the South Bronx, where I live, are the poorest in what is termed the poorest Congressional District in the nation. Close to thirty-six percent of Bronx residents pay out half of their income on rent. If you’re spending fifty percent just on rent every month, you don’t have money for food, clothing, and other necessities. You can’t save anything. You’re paying way more than you can handle. You are being forced to become a debt slave, a criminal, or both.
“You know the reality of Maricarmen Abascal’s own experience. You know not only ‘the cost of living,’ but the toll it takes on human life and dignity. Evictions in Spain and Germany, rats in the schools in France, are also a daily experience in America, and in my district in particular. But our so-called “representatives” in Congress, including Ritchie Torres [since 2021], who himself came out of Bronx public housing, won’t deal with the root cause of the housing, immigration, and poverty crises—the Epstein class and their commitment to a dying, 500-year-old imperial system, with its unpayable debt, and endless wars.”
