Any experts on Spain? Gotta admit I'm not familiar with the history and geopolitics of Catalonia.

Not an expert, though I was in the area this spring.

Although, they have a long history of grievance with castillian Spain per se' under Franco.

The main issue, that I perceive is economic.
Seeking outright separation may not be the goal, though more Autonomy akin to the Basque region may be what is settled upon.

While I was there this spring, I saw a preponderance of "independant Catalan" flags being hung from the railings of apartments in the working class section of the Barcelona.

Taxation wise, it is felt, Catalan contributes more than it gets in return from Madrid.

At this point, it's about money, fueled by old grievances and persecution.

Spain, in essence is made up of several regions, Castille, Catalan and Navarre (Basque).

In my Spanish travels, I favor the Catalan region especially.

Catalonia has, generally, wanted independent nation status for millennia, since, I think the 8th Century, when it organized as a region to defend against Moorish Islamist rule.

It has generally taken the "more liberal" side of International disputes than the rest of Spain, e.g. against Napoleon, Spanish Royalty, etc., and aligning with the "republicans" in the Spanish Civil War. Franco established the current status as a semi-autonomous "community" after the Civil War. The current regional Govt. is considered ultra-leftist, even by European standards. According to BBC this morning, it is 16% of Spain by population, and 23% by economy, with the lowest rate of unemployment in the country.

The above is probably a gross oversimplification sourced at least as much from the Aubrey-Maturin novels as any scholarly tome.

My family vacationed in Alicante in the 60's, and even that long ago there seemed to be more Catalan flags flying than Spanish ones.

One of the impressions we have is that the “countries” in Europe now have the borders they have always had. Au contraire, mes amis.

A review of history for a couple thousand years reveals that sovereign borders are among the most flexible and fluid lines imaginable. At one time of another, most every plot of land in any country has belonged to nearly every other country. Most of Spain has been at one time or another part of Spain, part of Italy or the Papal States, part of France, the Roman Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, and islamic sultanates in Africa.

Germany is even worse, Italy, too. Those “countries” have emerged only in the last century or two.

As JALLEN noted, the situation is complex and hard for anyone not very well versed and on the ground there to understand the nuances. I've read some stories about it and would not claim to know which side is 'right' in this dispute.

I do think it's a good example of what happens when people are disarmed and the government has all the weapons and power.

Spanish police trying to keep people from voting on the independence question (the government said the vote was illegal and have rounded up the leaders on sedition charges):




Here, Catalan firemen face off against the police and try to stand between the police and citizens:

A friend of mine lives there, he is Spanish. I asked him about it, he replied: "this is a bad joke... sad how they manipulate people..."

This sounds to me as though the super left government wants independence so they can do what they want. Similar to what the California government would do if they left the union (a nightmare).

Kinda sorta. The Basque country and Catalonia are two regions that have consistently done a bit better in terms of the economy and economic development than the other parts of Spain. That means they get taxed a lot and tend to have a steady influx of non-Basques and non-Catalonians looking for work. They also have distinct languages, histories of massive oppression under Franco and borders of their own with other countries - as well as (at least) centuries-long histories of being independent countries.

The "super-left" thing is...sorta just Europe. Madrid usually trends as far to the left or more, and gets really leftist when it comes to taking resources developed in some regions and sending them to other regions - whether for what are effectively welfare or attempts to prime the pumps of other regional economies. IOW, the Basque Country and Catalonia would probably fare far better if they were freed from freeloaders they're forced to share a national government with.

For Spain, there's another aspect to the ball game. Spain has long been composed of regions that just barely hang together. If one or two major provinces secede, others may follow suit. After all, the provinces can basically get everything from the EU that they now get from Madrid. At that point, Madrid is the center of a former empire that now can't sustain a country - much as London would be if Scotland and Wales became independent of the British Empire.

It's akin to California wanting independence because they don't like supporting the perpetually po-folks in Mississippi/etc, in terms of their economic argument, and their government's answer to that would be like our government telling California - too bad, your wealth partly exists and even happens at all because of all of us, so get over it, the wealthy will always be supporting those without, you can't just leave the team/country.

That's what I got out of it, from some Spanish friends.

Beyond the economics, there are other issues too, of course, but that's a/the big one, I hear.

quote:

Originally posted by Il Cattivo:
The "super-left" thing is...sorta just Europe.

The Spaniard-left is very left compared to most of Europe, hence why you see young, dreadlocked Spanish 'tourists' going to N.Ireland, Palestinian territories and Cuba.

Spanish politics today is a mix of left, more left and far-left, anything towards the middle or, right is viewed through the lens of Franco and nobody wants to consider that. Like others have pointed out, regionally Catalan is a money-maker for Spain, Barcelona is consistently in the top-3 most visited cities for tourism in the world. Unfortunately, taxation rate is uneven across the country, it's not quite 'no-taxation without representation' but, 'we're paying more, so we should have a bigger voice'. When you got fireman and policeman on opposite sides of an argument...that's not a good sign.

Great. My son and his fiancé are getting married April 7 in Barcelona. Should be an interesting few months while this mess unfolds.

I worked in Barcelona for about 18 months, transfer-of-technology project involving computer controls on the final assembly line of an automobile factory.

I arrived there about a year and a half after Franco's death.

A very memorable New Year's eve party at the home of one of my Spanish co-workers. In the wee hours, it had gotten very drunk. My wife and I were the only ones there who were not fluent in Catalan, so out of deference to us, the rest of the party spoke Castilian.

At one point, Jaime (a PhD computer guy) said something that I was pretty sure I understood, but I asked him to confirm, so he switched to English and said, "When Franco was alive, the pendulum was all the way on the right. Now he is gone, and the pendulum has swung all the way to the left. What we anarchists need, is some organization and leadership."

When the thugs went in to beat people to stop an vote, it pretty well tells you where you should be.

No region should be held against their will.

Ham operators suddenly got a new country to talk to and collect a QSL card from.

Lived just south of Catalonia for about five years, and they have some ancient and legitimate grievances, however absent another full out civil war, the Spanish government will never sanction full independence, for many of the reasons already mentioned here. Socialism notwithstanding, Madrid would never permit it from an economic standpoint.

quote:

Originally posted by Il Cattivo:much as London would be if Scotland and Wales became independent of the British Empire.

What British Empire?

tac

Visited Barcelona for 3 days last spring. Just did normal tourist things (except a night at the Camp Nou to see Barcelona and Messi play ). Very prosperous. Felt safe on the Metro night or day and walking around. Lots of evidence of Catalan culture from the ubiquitous flags to most signs in 3 languages with Catalan first. Definitely would return to see and do more.

As for the politics, the referendum was strictly illegal under the terms of the Spanish constitution, but the Madrid government played into the hands of the separatists with their heavy-handed response with the Guardia Civil. It seemed like Franco hadn't been dead for 42 years.

quote:

I do think it's a good example of what happens when people are disarmed and the government has all the weapons and power.

I think you're right, Bama. And it's just a taste of what's to come:

"You're On Your Own!!"

If the world seems incomprehensible now, just wait...

Within a twenty-four-hour span the Catalonian people voted 90 percent in favor of secession from Spain, despite the Spanish government’s effort to violently squelch the referendum, and a man in a Las Vegas hotel room opened fire on a concert, killing fifty-nine and wounding over 500. There’s no tangible connection between the two incidents, but they illustrate incipient forces still gathering steam that are transforming the world.

No government, military force, or intelligence unit has figured out how to stop those determined to kill large numbers of people if the killers are willing to forfeit their own lives. Nor will they. Individuals and small groups have the capability to amass and use large amounts of lethal weaponry, killing military and civilian targets in a guerrilla war, or victims on the deadly end of their random bullets or bombs.

Arguments that this can stopped by limiting access to weaponry are specious, serving only as cover for further expansion of government and curtailment of individual liberty.

The trend towards cheaper, more widely distributed killing power stretches back to the invention of gun powder. Guns can now be manufactured at home with 3D printers. The cows left the barn long ago.

Standing in opposition to the forces of decentralized violence are the forces of centralized violence, governments. Catalonia offers a useful illustration. Violence was the government’s loud and clear cry that it had no other argument for preventing Catalonian succession. The wealthy region pays a disproportionate share of Spain’s taxes and gets less back than it puts in. Catalans are a distinct ethnic subgroup, attenuating any so-called blood ties between Catalonia and Spain. Suppression was only partially successful and 90 percent of those Catalonians who voted chose independence.

A wonder in Catalonia was that masses of demonstrators clearly outnumbered Spanish police forces, but made no attempt to fight back against their brutality. This will be the exception rather than the rule as these types of conflicts escalate, which they will.

A joint wonder of Catalonia and Las Vegas is that gun banners continue to argue that private ownership of guns isn’t a bulwark against governmental tyranny, that civilized, gun-banning governments don’t tyrannize. How different would last weekend in Catalonia have been if Catalans had guns? How different would the future be if the Spanish government had to deal with private firearm possession as it decided on its response to say, a declaration of Catalonian independence? Sure, governments protect your rights, but pass the ammo.

Greece’s No vote in the summer of 2015, Brexit, Trump, and now Catalonia have come amidst an anemic global “recovery.” These insurrectionary portents have been relatively peaceful; few of the insurrectionists, even in Greece, were starving. What happens when the global economy collapses under its mounting debt burden? What happens when comparatively wealthier areas, like Catalonia, decide they’ll no longer support poorer areas? What happens when the masses face destitution?

Insurrectionary violence will no longer be off the table. The US, where there are more private firearms than there are residents, will be the center of the coming maelstrom. Look at the staggering arsenal Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock legally and surreptitiously amassed. There are plenty of such arsenals out there. From gang-bangers in South Central Los Angeles to Appalachian survivalists, everyone has guns, lots of guns.

There is probably already a black market in all sorts of military weaponry, too: munitions, mines, artillery, anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, etc. If there isn’t one now, expect one to emerge as the crisis mounts, fueled by the same sorts of entrepreneurs and networks who currently supply the US its illegal drugs.

The kind of decentralized, multi-sided guerrilla warfare that could coalesce in America will make Korea, Vietnam and all the other places the US has militarily intervened since look like walks in the park. Anyone who thinks the government will do anything more than add to the chaos is making a long-odds bet. Some government personnel, particularly those trained in violence—the police and military—will go free agent and join the general mayhem, especially after their employer goes bankrupt. The government’s only option for “order” may be the barren, decimated order of Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the atomic bomb blasts.

Preceding apace with the decentralization of violence has been a devolution of moral authority stretching back to the Reformation and the invention of the printing press. Organized religion has steadily lost influence, supplanted by countless doctrines of individual morality and choice, or conformity to the doctrines of self-selected groups. People shop in a philosophical bazaar of stated or unstated premises and tenets, consciously or unconsciously settling on those that appeal to their psychologies and correspond to their beliefs.

Government cannot replace organized religion as the central moral authority. Aside from criminalizing behaviors that are almost universally recognized as wrong (and even that is a fairly short list), government authority extends only to what is legal, not what is right and wrong. Much of what governments do, almost always characterized as legal by the governments that do it, would be universally recognized as evil if done by private individuals or groups. Governments have murdered millions, probably billions more people than whatever individual, group, or institution comes in a distant second place. Virtually all that murder has been legally sanctioned by the perpetrating government.

Efforts to obliterate traditional, religious-based morality with a morality of state worship have invariably been miserable failures; see Marxism. Government is everywhere and always power and coercion, and compliance with its dictates and strictures rests not on recognition of their moral worthiness, but on recognition of the costly and painful consequences of failure to do so.

Devolution has pushed morality down to the smallest social unit, the individual. Morality is a product of choices and choices are a matter of thought. Individualized morality—like all human thought—shaped in the trial and error of environments and circumstances best furthers the organic adaptation necessary for survival of the human species. It is like the English common law, incrementally developed and changed in light of what works and what doesn’t.

The devolution of morality has not wiped out either good or evil, or the vast range of human thought and behavior that falls in between. Thomas More’s individual defiance of England’s centralized government and church is now reckoned as saintly. Stephen Paddock was the personification of evil, but in the chaos and terror he unleashed, there were incredible stories of courage and heroism.

Even back in the Middle Ages the moral pronouncements of the Pope had little relevance to the serfs working far off lands. So little, in fact, that the Catholic Church didn’t deem it necessary to translate those pronouncements into a language the serfs could understand. The serfs went about their business, making their own judgments of right and wrong. Shaped, to be sure, by what religious instruction they had received, but mostly by the exigencies of their own situations.

In the coming atomized entropy, it will be starkly apparent that just as with preparation and survival strategies, morality lies with the individual. A fortunate few will be able to band together with other individuals of similar beliefs. Decentralization in full efflorescence will obliterate many of the current buffers—particularly the welfare state—between actions and consequences, meaning individuals will be forced to take responsibility for what they do, whether they want to or not.

In an insolvent world nobody’s left to pick up the tab.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/...10-07/youre-your-own

It's easy to add too much oregano, be careful.
I like mine with mushrooms and garlic.

The writer of that article is out of their fucking mind. ^

Central Moral Authority, my honkey ass. Talk about extraordinarily delusional wishful thinking. Clean your own house(s), jerkoff. When you're done with that in 20-30yrs, you might have some credibility when it comes to being a so-called Moral Authority. How about just shutting up regarding how other people live and focus on you and yours, fool.

I knew I should have stopped reading when they talked about "arsenals".

[eyeroll]

quote:

How about just shutting up regarding how other people live and focus on you and yours, fool.

Isn't that what the author is saying?
"You're On Your Own!!"

quote:

... morality lies with the individual. A fortunate few will be able to band together with other individuals of similar beliefs. Decentralization in full efflorescence will obliterate many of the current buffers—particularly the welfare state—between actions and consequences, meaning individuals will be forced to take responsibility for what they do, whether they want to or not.

Isn't he also saying "focus on you and yours"?

quote:

Governments have murdered millions, probably billions more people than whatever individual, group, or institution comes in a distant second place.

Isn't that true?

Isn't Spain attempting to hold together a centralized government, against the wishes of Catalonia??