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Spain's King Carlos Abdicates In Favor Of His Son Prince Felipe
In a surprise announcement, several hours ago Spain's Prime Minister Rajoy declared that Spain's King Juan Carlos is abdicating after almost 40 years on the throne and his son Prince Felipe will succeed him. "His majesty, King Juan Carlos, has just communicated to me his will to give up the throne," Rajoy said. "I'm convinced this is the best moment for change."
In retrospect, the move is perhaps not all that surprising: as Reuters recalls, once popular Juan Carlos, who helped smooth Spain's transition to democracy in the 1970s after the Francisco Franco dictatorship, has lost public support in recent years due to corruption scandals and gaffes. His daughter, Princess Cristina, and her husband, Inaki Urdangarin, are under investigation in a corruption case. Both deny any wrongdoing. A judge in Palma de Mallorca is expected to decide soon whether to put Urdangarin on trial on charges of embezzling 6 million euros in public funds through his charity.
Based on a January poll by Sigma Dos, 62% of Spaniards were in favor of the king stepping down, compared with "only" 45% a year earlier. They just got their wish.
The 76-year-old king, whose health is failing and has had five operations in two years, including hip replacement surgery, is stepping down for personal reasons, Rajoy said.
Since Spain does not have a precise law regulating abdication and succession, Rajoy also said that his cabinet would meet very soon to set out the steps for Prince Felipe to take over as Felipe VI.
While we await for details from Carlos' full statement which has just begun, one headline that has flowed through is that "Spain has been scarred by economic crisis."
Luckily for the King, he has not. Indeed, as Reuters adds "the country is just pulling out of a difficult and long recession that has seen faith in politicians, the royal family and other institutions all dwindle.
Felipe, 46, has had an increasingly important role in ceremonial events in the past year and has not been stained by the corruption case involving his sister and her husband.
Juan Carlos was once beloved for his common touch and was seen as much more accessible than the British royals.
In 2012, at the height of Spain's financial crisis, the king fell and broke his hip during an elephant-hunting trip in Botswana. The lavish privately funded safari was secret until his accident and came at a time of particularly harsh public spending cuts.
And on to the hope and change: Prince Felipe has a positive rating of 66 percent and most Spaniards believe the monarchy could recover its prestige if he took the throne, according to the poll. Felipe married divorced journalist Leticia Ortiz in 2004 and they have two daughters.
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6 million lol
Change you can believe in
Looks like a lot of people calling it quits these days.
Only going to be so many life boats......nice to gave your son to direct you to one.
The pain in Spain stay mainly in the brain.
Day after the Bilderberg finished?
Wonder what he knows.
I'm a bit surprised to see this news on ZH. As such, this abdication is a sign that "it's all quiet", in Spain
thank you, Don Juan Carlos. you helped Spain to find it's way from dictatorship to democracy. the young may not appreciate that, but we oldster remember well
G, with all due respect to His Majesty, question is:
what was He doing during those 3 Decades Francisco and his Merry Band of Fascistas was terrorizing the commoners with an iron grip?
twiddling his Royal Thumbs?
I think this is just more of Ghordy's frustrating naivete.
Fucking king did no shit. Except make the peasants poorer.
And yeah, got them Demoncrazy before it was fashionable for the US to bomb it down your throat.
Not to mention that he is the grand master of the knights of malta and tight with the Jesuits.
Yeah, what a goooooody goody king.
Now will the "creature" in Fuckin-ham palace take notice? Will the poster child for Agenda 21 be next?
*&*$&&%^$#&*(((##&#&#&#*@@@!#!!!!!!
ORI, I find your point of view naive. and frustrating. and very vague
Sorry Ghordy, but too much to pack into a littlepost here.
Suffice to say that AT NO POINT IN THE LAST 1000 years has there been a Kingship for the people.
The Vatican hand in Euro royalty is well known and the Jesuit hand in Spain specially.
Also, Carlos is heavily involved in the Knights of Mlata (those total, global do-evilers).
And incidentally, a deep study of history in India shows the same thing.
Philosopher kings are a thing of deep antiquity. None of these bastards count.
If you know, as an aside about the great lie of Halle Salasie (Ethiopia) and his false messia-ship, you will understand better.
On and on. Of course, once again, for peak royal fuckkery, look no further than the house of Saxe-Coburg Gotha.
A Royal Joke.
Here is a good search phrase to begin:
"King Carlos and the Knights of Malta"
Too many good links to post here...
ORI, when you google stuff like that you'll find hundreds of websites full of bullshit, particularly about all what was forbidden in the British Empire
you have to understand first that the British Empire spent a couple of centuries in a constant war against all Catholic kingdoms, particularly Spain
for criminy, just understand the story behind Guy Fawkes. terrorist or champion for religious liberty? fact is that Catholics were persecuted, in Britain
True, but if you study things long and hard, it's clear what is crap and what isn't.
And then, simply look at the condition of Britain's people and Spain's people and then a quick glance at the "royalty".
Anyways, no battle here, if you do not subscribe to the story of the power of the Vatican and the various forms of "brotherhood" it spawned and their absolute power over the world, then you will not agree.
All good.
A brief study of Indian royalty tells the same story at least since 1543, when the Mughal king Akbar had 3 jesuit missions come through his court at various points. His son, Jesuit trained, sowed the seeds of destruction of one of India's greatest empires shortly there-after.
There is a clear pattern for dot-connectors :-)
so? Akbar the Great abolished the tax on non-muslims, in the Mughal empire. His son, "Jesuit trained" Jahangir? what about him? What is your problem with him that can be seriously brought into direct influence of Jesuits?
you know that most power of the Timurids was lost because of their fights among princes and of the presence of the British, later
at the beginning, he was 10 years old when he left Italy and went to Spain. hardly an age where he could do anything about that
his father had a deal with Franco where the dictator would groom Juan Carlos as successor
when Franco died, he succeeded... and called for a new constitution, greatly reducing his powers towards an elected parliament
1981 there was an incipient military coup, and there he did well, too
he could have been king and dictator, aka absolute kingship. instead, he brought Spain back into the family of europe's (imperfect) democracies
ah yes, caught up in the democratic wave, which has now morphed into a technocratic tsunami.
mind trip for ya G: do you think Spain is any better for being a "democracy" than if it was an "absolute kingship"? for if JC was wise & crafty enough to navigate through Franco's influence without being tainted, wouldn't he have been capable of making better decisions for Spain than 51% of the electorate?
Perhaps there was a Larger Plan at work behind the scenes in those silly "secret" global meet & greets?
"democracy" isn't superior because of the 51% principle. it's superior because it's a principle of legitimacy that needs plurality, checks and balances, protection of minorities, etc. etc. just to somehow work
it's on the way to (or from) democracy that all the best parts of republicanism are found... or lost
very true. but is democracy the "only way" from where to find the ideals of republicanism?
i keep returning to the Thai example and muse that the all of those attributes you've outlined exist there because of the King, and not in spite of him.
Democracy (or what it has degenerated into) seems to be the major obstacle to the full fulfillment of those objectives in Thai society at this point.
yet the chief problem in every setup in history wasn't kingship or democracy. it was oligarchy
how many? how powerful? how open? how closed? how well entrenched?
Tyranny, as the Greeks called the Rule of One, was always a response to oligarchy. Democracy, the Tyranny of the People, was too always a response to oligarchy
Oligarchy is the main problem, and the most recurring and "natural" form of systems. how to cope with the current oligarchy sets the rails for how republicanism can be set or not, usually in the context of the recent oligarchic setup, and as a response to that
most countries during all ages had often one nominal system and a de-facto oligarchy
watch Ukraine. watch the regional oligarchs setting up their self-defense forces from the pool of their employees. oligarchy is the "reset status". always
only individualism as a propaganda tool obfuscates this historic fact
oligarchy is such a vital component to understanding the big big big picture, G. nice one.
would it be fair to say that all political system experiments so far have always eventually failed to counteract the hierarchal tendency of human civilizations over the long-term?
or is it a constant struggle? if so, why does this have to be so? what is it in the human psyche that allows this process to unfold over and over and over again?
sidebar: everyone talks about the Greeks, but no one mentions the Spartans? 2 Kings + a Council of Elders. one could make an argument, that this was not less evolved necessarily, just different. and equally weak to the powers of corruptible forces.
Sparta was an oligarchy, too. and it supported all oligarchies in Greece, while Athens later supported all democracies (or, better, all isocracies)
you had to be born a Spartiate, and then join the army from age 7 to 30, and then have the means to support a Spartiate lifestile (which involved lots of feasts) to then have political rights, and then you were one out of ten thousands or more
the same applies to later Venice: you had to be on the Golden Book in order to be one of the nobles of the Noble Republic called the Most Serene Republic of Venice. only then it was a republic, for you
yes, it is a constant struggle. The Few. Against The Many and sometimes The One
...and shot his older brother in his nose/head.
What a guy.
democrazy: Three bankers and two bought and paid for politicians voting on what the citizens get to choose from.
Si.
Lol! Ghordius thanking a king...think about it for 5 seconds. We live in the 21st century and you're thanking a king for his service...a king and his "divine" right to rule over all others.
Still the biggest laugh is the UK; a populace that struggles daily...a London constituency that can't even afford to live in their own city and going to work daily (if they even have a job) to pay for "The Royal" family.
I'm thanking him for what he did in the 20th century, which has nothing to do with divine rights whatsoever
In 2012, at the height of Spain's financial crisis, the king fell and broke his hip during an elephant-hunting trip in Botswana.
Hunting innocent elephants using high powered rifles... hmmmm
and lobbying for a corridor - which would make elephant hunting in Botswana less necessary
fact is that in parts of Africa there are too many elephants for too little - and too fragmented - territory, making hunting a necessity
the King of Spain and others are lobbying for corridors that would increase their natural habitats
too complex for most to understand that hunters can be environmentalists, too
The King of Spain has little power, like most kings and queens these days.
Except for the ones attending Bilderberg meetings.
Maybe this Bilderberger guy is the one who convinced him to retire.
I don't think he'll help much with the massive youth unemployment there.
He just helped his son get a job.
But now the Kingola can collect S/SS*
(Sp. Soc. Sec)
Inbred royals living lavishly at the expense of their increasingly economically-stressed citizens made no sense one hundred years ago and makes less sense today. The Queen of England holds on to her throne at age 88 while her idiot, infantile son waits for the day he will be king. The most notable contributions that Charles has made in his life have been to comedy. He wanted to be a tampon and he compared Putin to Hitler despite hos own family's well-documented connections to the Nazis.
Kings and queens and other assorted idiots are good for comedy. But at what cost?
Agreed. They should've died off long ago.
The European monarchies one hundred years ago made much more sense and were much cheaper than democracy and the democratically elected cleptocrats of our time. After all, tax rates in 19th century European monarchies were below 10% compared to 40-50% today.
actually being able to check who are your ancestors up to several generations reduces the risk of inbreeding. those blood lines who preferred to keep it tight cancelled themselves out
crossbreeding has definitely proven itself to be a successful long-term strategy for farmers.
and Framers for that matter.
It's funny and disgusting how all these countries in Europe can justify supporting royalty and democracy at the same time.
you will also find staunch republican setups. the majority of countries in europe are republics
Right ... and so are we. It's not a republican form of government when your representative represents 500,000 other people too. In a true republican form of government, the people who choose their representative actually "know" their representative. That can only be accomplished with a "hierarchy".
Say at the second level of the hierarchy are groups of 50 people who select their representative (in our 400M population that's 8M groups ... and 8M representatives) at this 2nd level. The job of the second level is to deal with those issues that cannot be handled at the top level (the individual citizen). This is basically the "neighborhood" level.
Continuing to the 3rd level, though the representative still represents only 50 people (in the group immediately above), all of whom know him, the interests of 2,500 individuals are being represented at his level. This is basically the "Township" level.
This process repeats until you get to the "bottom" level ... again, no level dealing with issues that can be dealt with by the level above it.
400,000,000 Individuals
8,000,000 Neighborhoods representing 50 Individuals
160,000 Townships representing 2,500 Individuals
3,200 Counties representing 125,000 Individuals
64 States representing 6,250,000 Individuals
1 Nation representing 400,000,000 individuals
As usual, the devil is in the details.
One obvious benefit is that money would play very little role in the representation. Money would have to be directed at 50 individuals, all of whom "know" each other. They would have to be "bribed".
A "bad actor" representative could easily be taken out by eliminating him from any of the levels above.
This would likely result in far smaller and less intrusive government. It would be difficult for any "special interest" to gain a foothold.
Just thinking...
Todd Marshall
Plantersville, TX
This sounds like a very inefficient and ineffective model for government. We have the Internet now, why not just have online referendums for the democractic vote, the way proxy votes work? Except one vote per citizen of course.
Then you just need a mechanism for enabling bills with enough popular support to go to referendum.
Also, more localized government, and less Federal government.
The problem with "democracy" is that the electorate needs to be paying attention. The electorate is not interested. Popular support is easy to generate. We call it propaganda, and people who want that popular support pay huge amounts of money to get it ... from clueless people.
To illustrate: If I ever encounter someone who wants to engage me on current events (usually complaining about Obama ... but before that complaining about Bush), before the conversation gets started I ask them if they can help me with a personal survey. I show them the video of WTC7 falling down and ask them if they know what that is. My current tally is: 76 respondents. 4 knew what they were looking at. Then I ask them: Where do you go to learn about current events? To the same people who "didn't" tell you about this crime perpetrated by your government?
The line always then goes dead.
History is revealing. When they started lobbying for the income tax amendment it was framed as "the rich aren't paying their share". The support for the income tax, which was to be about 1%, came from people who would not pay it. In the end, those people have ended up paying dearly, and the rich they thought they were hurting found ways to avoid most of the income tax. History is repeating itself. When you're paying 90% tax, how much more can 100% hurt? And regarding that 90% tax ... Bing Crosby ended up owning Minute Maid Orange juice to avoid that tax. He did their commercials and they gave him a stake in the company.
Nobody ever paid 90% tax. But today, poor people who play the government run lotteries pay 50% tax to play. And if they win, they pay 75% tax or higher depending on the payout they choose.
frogs next.
Carlos' Reign In Spain Is Over - That is Plain
His reign in Spain is mainly on the wane.
King Juan Carlos poses with the safari organizer in front of the carcass of a dead elephant in Botswana.
http://rt.com/files/news/27/cd/c0/00/spain-king-abdication-pm-.jpg
You can't shoot down an elephant with a rifle like those on the picture, can you?
Oh, yes! Looks like a Holland and Holland .505 Nitro Express.
Read some Robt. Ruark.
Depends on the cartridge, but for a simple answer, yes, you can kill elephant with a rifle like the ones shown. Double barreled rifles have been, and are still, produced mostly in Europe for safari for over 100 years.
Better question is who the fuck moved the elephant? Obviously it didn't prop itself up against that tree.
Anyone who supports monarchs in this day is an idiot. Why should anyone have such great advantages simply by an accident of birth? And that too, a lifetime of advantage, And then to treat the royals as better than yourself by bowing and kneeling and curtseying is a constant insult to your own self. Fuck you, royals - you should be bowing and kneeling in front of your citizens since they pay all your bills.
Anyone who supports paying for the lavish lifestyles of royals is a bigger idiot still. But as Einstein put it, only human stupidity is infinite in this universe.
"Why should anyone have such great advantages simply by an accident of birth?"
like being born in London instead of Calcutta? or being born in America instead of Africa?
you are right, why should anybody have advantages simply by an accident of birth? let's swap all babies at birth, eh?
Wrong analogy. Royals get special treatment from birth and are imbued with special significance by retarded idiots who treat them as superior all their life.
Next you will be saying that because some are born with better genes, it's OK to have to have royals to support and treat their citizens as second class citizens who have to bow and kneel before them.
Because there is a genetic or geographical lottery, it does not mean we should have royals. Only an idiotic royalist would make such an argument.
you are talking about genes, not me. how about Westerners get special treatment from birts and are imbued with special significance...
I know enough Africans and Asians that would agree with that phrase. btw, no european citizen has to bow or kneel before royals. you can live here for your whole life quite happily ignoring them
Ghordius, while I have a lot of respect for your intellect, now you come across as a
desingenious elitist status-quo defender.
actually, been noodling for quite a while whether if, for some cultures (Thailand for instance), a straight-up monarchy is preferable to a so-called democracy. and if so, how the "will of the people" can be more efficiently facilitated through that type of system.
the problem as i see it for modern-day monarchs is that they hide behind these so-called democracies and then go every year to those silly "secret" meet & meddles with the minions put in charge of global policy,
instead of simply being the Ceremonial Actors of society like they supposedly have "evolved" into being/performing.
As long as there is such a thing as a King or Queen, Personal Accountability & Responsibility should be the First Principle for every monarch.
so says the I Ching anyhow.
Now, Felipe VI will dissolve Parlament and Gov, declare a period of constituent freedom, and call for elections to choose the writers of a new Constitution, so Spain will finally find a projecto to be.
Sorry, I've been smoking hard stuff...
Meanwhile in other news..... "Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead."
Huh? You sure he didn't just change his name and flee during the night with the cash??
"...Meet the new bosss...same as the old boss..."
- Won't Get Fooled Again - The Who
http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Won't-Get-Fooled-Again-lyrics-The-Who/761EF79AAB42FA9C48256977002E72F9
Just becasue we won't get fooled again doesn't mean they won't keep doing it.
Until we can have a philosopher king, who can own no property, I have no use for one of them. Just another parasitic group of freeloaders...sucking the blood of their people. Fuck all royalty.
Cosmically speaking, a complete non-event, & another example of a press release being churned out before checking whether any sentient being had the remotest interest.
Far more important: my cats like the new bargain dried 'food' I bought last week.
"A dog thinks: These folks treat me well, feed me, groom and let me sleep in a warm, dry place. They must be Gods. A cat thinks: These folks treat me well, feed me, groom and let me sleep in a warm, dry place I am a God!"
Yes, my cat is also far more important than the King of Spain. My cat is a goddess that needs constant attention. The Egyptians had it right.
Do I fucking care?!
Drug traffickers all.
Oh my God! What are we gonna do?????
Games of Thrones has a new development!
A big "coronation" circus is needed.
I am wondering what they will do. We had Big-Ass royal weddings, but none of the fuckers had the bad luck to get their own coronation in midst of a shit economy. Probably Felipe is dreaming of the old times, as Kings could do as they pleased and didn't give a fuck about bad PR.