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Spain Defense Minister Warns Army May Intervene Unless "Catalonia Obeys The Rules"
With Spain's Catalan region on the verge of electing pro-independence parties and seeking autonomy from central rule, the government (clearly worried) has ramped up the rhetoric on what consequences lie ahead. In a rather stunning outburst for a supposed democracy, CNA reports, the Spanish Defence Minister, Pedro Morenés, assured that the army won’t act in Catalonia as long as "everybody fulfills their duty." The Catalan minister for the presidency exclaimed Morenes statement was "out of this world," and could only be made by "someone who is afraid of democracy." The army will "enforce the Constitution," Morenes concludes, unless "members strictly obey the rules." As one pro-independence minister opined, "threatening and trying to intimidate means that you are only left with stupidity."
In Novermeber, Spain got a big surprise... Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has a problem. Despite his best legal and propoganda defenses (and harsh weather conditions) today's symbolioc vote for Catalonia independence proceeded... and the initial results (with 88% of the vote counted) are in:
- *TURNOUT IN CATALAN BALLOT WAS ABT 2.25 MLN, GOVT SAYS
- *81% BACK INDEPENDENCE IN CATALAN BALLOT
The Spanish government is saying the "data is not valid" and is investigating the illegal ballot calling it a "useless sham." Catalan President Mas says pro-independence parties will meet this week to put pressure on Madrid.
The Spanish Defence Minister, Pedro Morenés, assured that the army won’t act in Catalonia on 9/27 as long as "everybody fulfils their duty." In an interview with Spanish National Radio (RNE) this Tuesday he recalled that Catalan politicians "have sworn to obey and enforce the Spanish Constitution" and said that he expected them "to do so." When asked about the hypothetical unilateral declaration of independence after the elections, he spoke in support of the implementation of Article 115 of the Spanish Constitution, which establishes the suspension of Catalonia’s autonomy. Morenés stated that he is for "applying the laws if they are disobeyed" and underlined that the army "is an absolutely and perfectly democratic" institution whose members "strictly obey" the rules.
...
In the event of a unilateral declaration of independence, if pro-independence parties win the Catalan elections on 9/27, Morenés openly showed his support for the application of Article 115 of the Spanish Constitution and emphasised that “the law has to be applied when disobeyed”. Article 115 allows the Spanish Government to suspend Catalonia’s autonomy and force it to adhere to the rules.
Morenés’ statement has caused huge controversy amongst the Catalan parties and shook the Spanish political scene as a whole. Both ministers and candidates didn’t take much time to react.
...
The Catalan Minister for the Presidency, Francesc Homs, labelled Morenés’ words as “indescribable in a democratic context”. He stated that such statements were “not of this world” and added that it can only be hoped “that one day, a minister from the People's Party (PP) will take Catalonia’s vote into account”.
The spokeswoman for the Catalan government, Neus Munté, responded to Morenés by saying that a statement like this could only be made by “someone who is afraid of democracy”.
...
The spokesman for left wing pro-independence ERC in the Spanish Parliament, Joan Tardà, described Morenés as a “fool” and a very “low-cost” person in terms of ethics. He said that it was embarrassing that a person who is supposed to be “cultured and travelled” could say “such nonsense”.
Convinced that the Spanish Minister of Defence was using words to try and “frighten” Catalan citizens on the occasion of the 9/27 elections, Tardà noted that this only showed “his weakness” and that “threatening and trying to intimidate means that you are only left with stupidity”.
"Everything is all set for Nov. 9," says a senior Catalan regional government official as the region prepares to defy both the central government and the country's highest court and proceed with a much-disputed weekend vote on whether to secede from Spain. And while the Spanish government has not specified what legal consequences Catalan leaders, poll workers or voters might face Sunday, when they go to vote, The LA Times reports that Madrid has reportedly readied thousands of Civil Guard police officers to travel to Catalonia this weekend if needed.
* * *
As Mike Krieger concluded previously:
On a more serious note, Americans need to understand that Spain is merely a few years ahead of us. The question isn’t whether the status quo will be overthrown, the question is what will replace it. Something better, or something worse? Our key mission must be to ensure we get a better system after this one blows up, not something even worse.
Watch Spain closely in the months ahead. It will be another canary in the coal mine for the entire Western world.
* * *
We leave it to this Twitter user to sum it up:
@zerohedge we, catalan people, only want to vote to see what we want to be! Asking people should never be banned! Spain is not a democracy
— 9Núria (@nuriabg6) November 5, 2014
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Prelude....
FUCK THE EU
Espania, one of th ehomes of fascism's roots in Europe, cannot give up it's tendencies easily.
And those Catalan folks know how to put up a good fight.
Imagine though, be willing to kill your own countrymen....armies all over the world should just die of shame....from the trigger pulling foot soldier all the way up to the generalissmos...
"The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.
Don't 'European Values' support self determination, LOL>
Sounds like the USSA state department called up their defense stooge in Spain, telling him to quell the slave revolt, lest the central banks lose money on a messy breakup. Democracy is only for countries the USSA and EU wish to dominate.
I'm optimistic. I see here, along with our brothers in NATO, an opportunity to finally break the back of the undemocratic, ungrateful and irresponsible Catalonian people.
This just in: Generalissimo Francisco Franco is clinging perilously to death.
the central gov has fascist tendencies (no surprise) and the Catalan's have commie tendencies (going way back to the civil war). Democracy is used to "legitimize" socialism. Should not be cheering for either. A pox on both their houses.
hmmm. Just one question. Who's closer to fascism? Those than claims following the constitution and basic laws, those that claim Spain is a country based on a legal system and a parlament? Or those that claim for an Ethnic-cultural based nation?
I think you nailed it bang on Latina.
The pain in Spain stays mainly on the Catalan ?
Yeah, it didn't turn out good for Alderaan after she made that comment.
https://youtu.be/p0qLzsIhUMk
You have a point with that one Doc.
"Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?"
pods
They are two years ahead of us? After years of 50 percent unemployment and totally corrupt leaders stashing millions in Swiss acounts, getting caught doing it and then being let off the hook? Are you kidding? The US is way behind that curve. It will take a decade at least after the Caitlin Jenner show has at least three spin offs before the stupid Mercuns lift their fat stupid heads out of their asses and see the place is on fire.
U must be kidding, don't you? If you don't, then you should read again about what really fascism is. BTW, that idea of "catalan folks know haw to fight" is HILARIOUS. LOL!!!!
All the independence trendtopic is just delusion, and you know it. Everybody knows it, that's why nothing happens in real life. It's just a political farce.
Welcome to the Hotel Catalonia... You can check out anytime you want, but you can never leave.
Agents of empire will be salivating at the chance to prove they support the statists. It's what they signed up for.
Can you name any country in Europe (other than Iceland) that isn't a home to Fascism?
EXACTLY!
All your freedoms belong to us. Kneel bitchez, or we'll send in the boots to stomp on your face.
Love always,
The Party.
I think I suffered a mild stroke or something. Didn't Catalonia ALREADY take an independence vote, pass it overwhelmingly and then have to back-track and call it "non-binding" when the central government mobilized the troops?
Is this a second vote on the same subject? Is this one "binding"? I SWEAR I've heard all this before. I feel like I'm talking crazy pills.
Are they STILL voting?
Yes, you have heard this before, deja vu is a glitch in the matrix. Quick question; if one is already crazy, what happens when they take crazy pills? Do they cancel each other out?
Good diagnosis, doctor.
Maybe the plebs will someday figure out that voting doesn't work and freedom is better attained with boiled rope and lampposts.
Probably not.
Another example of how all those great ideas of The State, must be enforced....at gunpoint.
The Catalan government has promoted and funded a think-tank called, with astounding honesty, Institut Nova Historia (New History Institute). The Institute has been publishing books and organizing conferences stating that Cervantes or Santa Teresa were Catalan and that the perfidious Castilians conspired over the centuries to rob Catalonia of such glorious figures. If you are tempted to believe this kind of stories (not history), hold on, cause the same institute claims that Erasmus of Rotterdam and Leonardo da Vinci were Catalan too, and that the Roman Empire only became glorious when it absorbed Catalonia. We must believe thus that it was not the Castilians but the globe that conspired to rob Catalonia of its glories. This may be an extreme example, but only slightly more extreme than things that you may have heard such as the (false) conquest of Catalonia in 1714 by Spanish troops. All this could make us laugh but is actually something very serious. Two years ago, the regional government organized a pseudo-conference with the title of “Spain against Catalonia” to “analyze” the “300 years of political, cultural, linguistic, economic and media repression of Spain against Catalonia”. You live in Catalonia, so, do you see us Catalans as oppressed? Obviously, no serious historian attended the masquerade, and the most influential foreign historians such as John Elliot and Henry Kamen, severely condemned such a poisonous politically driven act of propaganda. The problem with propaganda, though, is that repeated continuously permeates some minds seeding hate and galvanizing in believers the need to respond to the imaginary oppression; something which can have dramatic consequences.
It is impossible to ignore the long-lasting influence that the Roman Empire had on the formation of modern Europe. In its History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Churchill describes how the Roman occupation of England created an enduring cleavage between England a Scotland. In Italy, after the fall of the Roman Empire and despite the fragmentation of the Italian peninsula in a myriad of states, the idea of pertaining to a same nation remained and the aspiration of reuniting the peninsula was transmitted over the centuries until 1861 when it became effective. Spain, the Roman province of Hispania and then the land of the Visigoth Kingdom was no different. Even during the years of fragmentation that followed the Muslim occupation of the peninsula, a feeling remained of sharing a certain common identity, based on religious, historical and cultural grounds. In The Prince, written at the beginning of the XVI century,Macchiavelli saw in the unification of the peninsula and the birth of Spain a model for Italy. Thus he praised in many passages of the book the king Ferdinand of Aragon as the model to be followed by the Italian prince that had to reunify the Italian peninsula.
The interesting thing about the unification of Spain, as opposed to the unification of other countries, is that it happened naturally, as the two crowns of the time, Castille and Aragon, coalesced to fight foreign enemies such as the Muslim occupiers and France and develop a global empire.
As it happens with many other countries, the history of Spain has had ups and downs and internal struggles, but these have never been along the lines of Spain versus Catalonia. The war of 1704-1714, to the succession to the Spanish throne, had nothing to do with the independence of Spanish regions. Ironically, despite what separatist claim, is with the Bourbons that Catalonia became a prosperous Spanish region. Life went on and people thrived. In 1804, when the Napoleonic troops invaded Spain, Catalans fought vehemently against the French invader in defense of the Spanish Crown.Catalonia remained actually strongly traditionalist and monarchical. In 1827 Catalonia went through the Guerra del Malcontents (War of the Disgruntled), a new revolt against the central government asking now, actually, for the mildly liberal government to be removed, a stronger absolutism by the Bourbon King Ferdinand VII, and the re-instauration of the Inquisition Tribunal! Not to talk about the civil war, which was a disgrace but which was fought across ideological, not regional, lines.
It is not about cultureYou say that Catalan culture is different from that of the rest of Spain. Yes, Catalonia is different. But in being different is Catalonia any different than other regions in Spain? In the Middle Ages Catalonia was part of the Crown of Aragon together with Aragon and Valencia. Each had separate institutions, Cortes (a kind of medieval proto-parliament), history and culture. Thus, while being different, Catalonia is hardly more different than Aragon or Valencia. Even within the rest of Spain, many other regions have had a distinct history (think of the kingdoms of Asturias, Leon, Galicia, Castile, Granada), or a distinct language, such as Galician, Basque, Bable, Valencian.
By saying this, I am not belittling Catalan culture. I am Catalan myself and proudly so. By saying so, what I want to underline is that Spain is a diverse country and that Catalonia is no exception. Spain was born from an amalgam of people with some differences but with a common history and religion and with a common global purpose. Despite what separatists say, due to the way it came to exist, Spain has managed to maintain and preserve the very particular cultural specificities and languages of the regions of which it is composed. Just compare the situation of Catalonia with the situation of the French Roussillon, what the nationalist call North Catalonia. Roussillon had been traditionally part of the Crown of Aragon. It was actually the need to defend the Roussillon from the French threat that led King Ferdinand to seal the alliance with Castile through the marriage with Queen Isabel. For almost two hundred years, the scheme worked. Then in 1640 Catalonia revolted in protest to the demand that it contributed its fair share in the military campaigns of the Crown and France took the opportunity to annex Roussillon and Cerdanya. If you compare the situation of Catalan culture and language in both sides of the Pyrenees the difference is striking. Catalan is well alive in Spain, so it is hard to see how being part of Spain is a threat to Catalan culture.
When Catalan artists like Joan Bosca wrote in Spanish in the XVI century it is because they chose to do so. In the same way we adopt English today as a global lingua franca, Spanish was adopted for centuries, not only in Spain, as the lingua franca of empire. It was the most powerful man of the time, a German emperor, born in Flanders, who learnt Spanish only in adulthood that said “you cannot expect me to speak anything other than my Spanish tongue, which is so noble it should be learnt by every Christian”. I am talking of course of Charles V.
Much later, that Catalonia was part of Spain was no obstacle for the Catalan Renaixença or Renaissance to take part. And the Catalan Renaissance was no obstacle for its protagonists to feel Spanish and to praise Spain in Catalan. Verdaguer, who lived in the second half of the XIX century and became possibly the greatest Catalan poet, wrote the Virolai, an hymn to the Virgin of Montserrat, patron of Catalonia but historically object of devotion in all of Spain. The song itself is amazingly beautiful, so if you have not heard of it yet, look for it in youtube. But Verdaguer did not see Catalan and Spanish identities as separated, but as one part of another. Montserrat is a Catalan symbol and thus a Spanish symbol. Referring to the Virgin, he wrote in Catalan: of Catalans you will always be the Princess, of Spaniards the Star of Orient, be for the good ones a pillar of strength and for sinners a heaven of salvation. In the original version (later modified by nationalists) he added Queen of Hearts, Spain invokes you / give us shelter in your blue mantle.
His true masterpiece (again in Catalan) is perhaps L’Atlantida which concludes with a praise of the Spanish Empire which is about to be born and its civilizing and proselytizing mission.
Sees the angel of Spain, charming and beautiful,
that yesterday with gold wings pinned Granada,
widen them today as the starry one,
and make the broad earth his mantle.
Sees the Spanish Empire bringing
the Holy Cross tree to the new hemisphere,
and the world in its shadow bloom,
embodying the wisdom of heaven.
Despite what you may have heard, Catalan literature and artists flowered too in time of Franco with poets and writers such as Josep Vicenç Foix (National Prize in Spanish Literature of 1984, although he wrote in Catalan), Josep Pla, Salvador Espriu, and many others. Some were actually rather critical of nationalism, and have thus lost the favor of the current official nationalist establishment.
Sadly, the true enemies of Catalan culture are instead nationalist themselves, for two reasons. First, because Spanish language and Spanish culture are part of Catalan culture, and by denying this and removing Spanish symbols and elements from Catalonia and Catalan culture the nationalists are trying toerase an important element of our Catalan identity. Second, because culture in Catalan language has been subordinated by the nationalist regional government to the indoctrination of society and theconstruction of an official and unique Catalan identity. If I said that nowadays Catalan government has reduced Catalan culture to three things (the football club of Barca, political propaganda masquerading as a comedy show in Catalan TV, and Catalan porn). I may be exaggerating, but only slightly. It is actually no joke that the Catalan government has subsidized porn movies just because they were shot in Catalan language!
It is, sadly, about less noble human instinctsSome of my friends are infuriated by this but the feelings that I see fueling separatism are dramatically negative: greed, xenophobia, ignorance, selfishness. Nevertheless another great Catalan poet, Joan Maragall, warned already at the beginning of the XX Century that behind Catalanism there were two driving but opposing forces. One, the love of Catalan culture was positive, but the other, hate of every Spanish symbol, was negative, destructive. I am afraid that today, in the minds and hearts of separatists, the driving force is the second. This is no accident.
Catalan nationalism was really born after the collapse of the Spanish Empire in 1898, with the loss of the ultramarine territories of Cuba and the Philippines. The Catalan bourgeoisie had benefitted enormously from trading with those territories and was a strong supporter of military intervention to defend what remained of the Spanish empire. Indeed, one of the most popular Catalan havaneras (often sung in the beach, around a fire while drinking cremat), is called El meu avi (My grandfather), and is basically a praise (in Catalan) of those patriots (Catalans) that fought in Cuba to defend the Spanish nation. After the war the local bourgeoisie, frustrated with the collapse of Spain, saw the need and the opportunity to lead Spain in a new direction.
More recently, with the return of democracy, Catalonia has fallen prey to local landlords. Jordi Pujol, who as a kid I learnt to admire as the father of Catalans, was not only a nationalist, but as well a racist. The man that governed Catalonia for more than 20 years and is the political father of Artur Mas, the current president of the regional government, wrote in the 1970s about workers from Andalusia coming to work to Catalonia: “The Andalusian man is not a consistent man, is a lawless man. He is a broken man (…) generally a little man, a man that for hundreds of years has been starving and living in a state of ignorance and cultural, mental and spiritual misery. He is a rootless man, unable to have some broad sense of community (…) I have said it before: he is a man destroyed and anarchical. If by force of number came to dominate while still dealing with his own perplexity, he would destroy Catalonia. And introduce his anarchic and very poor mentality, that is, his lack of mentality”. Let me remind you that such lesser Andalusian men include geniuses such as Velazquez, Garcia Lorca, Picasso, and 2 out of 7 Spanish Nobel prizes!
Much more recently, only 10 years ago, his wife was indignant in TV that the president of the Catalan regional government was born in Andalusia and had a Spanish name. Can you imagine Barbara Bush in TV complaining that the president of the US was a black man, and one called Barack?
Pujol was a racist, but not a stupid man. In the 1980s, he took the opportunity given by the goodwill of most Spaniards and the central governments (and possibly, too, their stupidity) to take control of the education system in Catalonia. Spanish-speaking teachers had to look for employment in other regions of Spain given that from then onwards all education was to be in Catalan. Interestingly enough, nationalist in the 1970s defended in the Spanish Parliament the right to have schooling in Catalan reasonably arguing that educating a kid in a language other than his mother tongue impaired his learning process. Nevertheless, as soon as they took control of the system, they had no remorse in inflicting to the kids of others what they complained it had been inflicted upon their kids. As a result, Catalonia is possibly today the only region in the world where a family cannot educate their kids in the national language which is, by the way, the mother tongue of most Catalan people! Characteristically of the neo-language they mastered and perfected, nationalist called this normalization. A more appropriate word would be abomination. I have no kids myself but I have many friends that given this situation are sending their kids to private and foreign schools rather than to the public schools. Others, with less means, are sending them to the public Catalan-only schools and are deeply frustrated. As a result of this policy Catalonia is one of the regions with the highest rate of school failure in Europe.
Education is in every country the main pillar on which national identity is built and preserved. It is the case in every country I have lived in, such as Italy, France, the USA, Indonesia, Malaysia and Tanzania. The national flag is raised in schools and the national anthem is sung. Spain, because of the stupid association of national symbols with the Franco era, is an anomaly. And nationalist have taken advantage of this opportunity, promoting their flag, their anthem and their imaginary nation. The idea was repeated everywhere. Already thirty years ago Catalan mass-media were inundated with publicity from the regional government to let us Catalans know that we were different through slogans such as “we are six million people”, “we are a country of Europe” and the like.
As a result, some people have had little opportunities to know the many great things about Spain and feel part of it. They may ignore that the doctrine of human rights was firstly developed in the 1500s by Spanish theologians such as Francisco de Vitoria. They ignore that it was the School of Salamanca that at the end of the same century first developed a monetary theory of quantity and value. That Spain had in 1814 the most liberal Constitution in Europe, and the absolutist European power had to invade Spain in 1823 to remove the liberal government and reinstate the absolutist monarch. Some may know that an Italian gave his name to America, but will ignore that it was a Spaniard (Elcano) the first to circumnavigate the globe, and another (Urdaneta) that after years looking for a viable route first crossed the Pacific from Asia to America actually completing the very first globalization process. They will ignore most of the common history that amalgamates and makes a nation great.
Josep Tarradellas, a former president of the regional government or Generalitat which lived in exile from 1939 till 1977 and a member of Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, which is now a feverously separatist party, denounced already in the 1980s the nationalist policies in Catalonia, the useless and unnecessary confrontation with the rest of Spain. Of Pujol’s nationalist government he said: “It is clearly trying to hide the failure of the entire government action and the lack of moral authority of those responsible (…) The megalomania and the personal ambition of some people have led us to the current sorrow state of things (…) If we have reached this point is due to the attitude that began the very same day the current president of the Generalitat (Mr. Pujol) took office (…) The nationalist leaders are using a well-known and widely discredited trick, playing the persecuted and the victims. And thus we read statements such as that Spain oppresses us, boycotts us, curtails our autonomy, despises us, forgetting that it was them that, to conceal their political incapacity and lack of ambition to do things properly, started the actions that could only lead us to the situation in which we now find ourselves (…) Division will be deeper every day, and move us more and more away from our goal of consolidating democracy and freedom”.
In 1990, some of the newspapers that now support separatism denounced in their pages a strategy of the nationalist government to take control of all elements of civil society: cultural organizations, sports organizations, and the like. The process has only gone forward and the economic crisis has given the opportunity to traditionally minority separatist groups to gain significant new support. These new separatists are obviously not driven by the love of Catalonia, their culture and their grandparents, given that things have not changed in that respect in the last 5 years. They see negative news about their country and they are reasonably ashamed. Less reasonably and rather simplistically they believe the solution to bad news is to print a different passport. They have seen their standards of living decrease; their prospects for future advancement diminish. They do not know why and they want an alternative that gives better opportunities for their kids. And this is what the separatist propaganda offers them. “A country with ice cream for dessert every day”, claimed one of their adds. They are told that Spaniards rob them. They believe that with independence they will pay less taxes and be richer. In this respect, the rise of the separatist movement in Catalonia is not any different than the recent rise of populist parties in Europe such as the Front National in France and not much different than the raise of extremist groups in Europe in the 1920s.
Given all this, the reasons for which I am not a separatist are basically 2. First, I am no fanatic. I am pretty happy being Catalan as a Spaniard, and I do not feel I need a different country to be whatever I want to be. Second, I just do not share the diagnostic of the situation in Spain and the recipes to cure its illness. I believe Spain is going through a very deep crisis, but I do not believe it is because Spaniards are inherently bad, lazy, corrupt or worst than anybody else. Accepting our own responsibility when it comes to corruption or cronyism, the crisis has much to do as well with stronger global economic and financial forces, magnified last decade by the monetary unification process in Europe, and the solution has little to do with being independent from Spain. I believe that our energies should be focused on addressing the existing problems and becoming a better society and a better country, tackling corruption, improving education, the business environment, governance and institutions. Unfortunately the separatist movement is actually wasting an extraordinary amount of energy in the wrong direction, trying to create a new country from a region which is suffering from exactly the same illness, if not worst, than the rest of Spain and actually doing nothing to address any of the existing problems.
Let me finish with saying that, although I am convinced that we will not see an independent Catalonia, I am now rather pessimistic about its future. I believe that the propaganda promoted in Catalonia over the last years by the irresponsible regional government may not permeate the majority of the population but will have a significant and lasting impact on part of society creating in it an enduring division. Too many Catalans have grown deep inside a hatred of what they are, of their neighbors and brothers. We have seen too often in Europe, and in more remote places such as Rwanda and Burundi, how easy is to create the seed of hatred between brothers through victimism, lies and propaganda. And much worst, what this brings”.
If you don't keep the radical Muslims out neither Catalan nor Spanish culture will survive in any recognizable form.
There are no radical mussulmen. There are only mussulmen.
The central government can fix that. Declare Cervantes and Santa Teresa Jewish.
Enlightening post.
I agree with you. Most people in Spain talk about having "the same and correct diagnosis" but "different cures". Needless to say: that's bullshit. A proper diagnosis leads by itself to the proper cure. The "consensus" in such "diagnosis" is a "consensus" in different lies.
Cheers from Basque Country.
tl;dr
http://dolcacatalunya.com/2015/08/31/what-happens-in-catalonia-2/
Investor Guru's statements are a mixture of half-truths and falsehoods. Catalonia, the most important member of the Crown Aragon, was an independent political entity for about 500 years. Catalonia's origin can be dated to the end of the 9th century AD, when the catalan feudal counts terminated allegiance to the Frankish kings. Thanks to the so called Spanish Mark, a set of fortresses south of the Pyrenees created by the catalan counts under sovereignty of the Frankish kings, Catalonia was only briefly under Muslim control, and does have a cultural heritage that is distinctly different from that of Spain. In 1137 the County of Barcelona (Catalonia) entered a dynastic union with the Kingdom of Aragon, creating the Crown of Aragon, whose most important member and effective government was the County of Barcelona and that for about 200 years controlled a Western Mediterranean empire. It was an independent political entity! With the personal union of Isabel (of Castile) and Fernando (of Aragon) in 1469 both crowns maintained their independence. Charles V inherited both crowns in 1516 and one could say in today's political terminology that Catalonia entered a sort of confederacy with Castile. That is what Spain was until 1714 when, as a result of the Catalan defeat in the Spanish Succession War, an international and civil war in which Catalonia took the Habsburg side, and lost, all catalan institutions were abolished and the catalan language and culture were repressed, situation that lasted well into the 20th century.
Investor Guru’s analogy of the catalan independence movement with France’s National Front or other xenophobic political movements in Europe is totally false. Catalonia has always been and is a friendly “all colors welcome” land. Some of the oldest democratic institutions of Europe, like the Consell de Cent (13th. Century) and the movement of Peace and Truce of God (10th century) are catalan and millions of tourists visiting Barcelona every year seem to think Catalonia to be a friendly land. It is.
What is most important though from today's point of view is that economically, Catalonia is exploited at a rate of about 8% of GDP yearly, what has very dire consequences for the catalan population in terms of infrastructure, budget deficits, education, health expenditure, etc. This fact is masked thru a set of statistic gimmicks that the spanish government uses in order to make it look like it is not Catalonia the region of spain that pays, by far and unfairly, the most. Something not unlike what happens in the USA with inflation measurement (Shadowstats et. Al.). We Catalans consider ourselves a modern and undeclared economic colony of Spain.
LOL!
Just take a look at your first two lines:
"Investor Guru's statements are a mixture of half-truths and falsehoods. Catalonia, the most important member of the Crown Aragon, was an independent political entity for about 500 years. "
So Catalonia was part of the crown of Aragon but it was an independent entity? LOL. And the subsequent fancy historical fantasies...
Then you talk about money. Did you recently checked regional deficits and debt burden? Don't do it, it's bad news for your moaning arguments.
And if it ere true... It's normal the richest neighbourhood tax agregate sums higher than the skid row. It's normal industrial a financiar areas agregate GDP is higher than countryside areas. What's the point on that? The fact is that any company or person pays the same taxes in all regions, the same rates in all spain regions. That's the point.
All that stupid independence hoax is just herding.
medieval history and institutions are juridically complex: you might want to open some history books and inform yourself better, Sir.
I've tried to be accurate and there is no contradiction in my statements:
Catalonia was independent from the end of the 9th. century as a stand alone entity and from 1137 onwards entered a dynastic union with the Kingdom of Aragon, creating the Crown of Aragon, of which it was the most important member. The Crown of Aragon was an independent entity and until 1469 had no juridical linkage with the Kingdom of Castille, and even after that date it continued to exist until 1716 (2 years after the end of the Spanish Succession War). So yes, Catalonia was independent first as a stand alone entity and afterwards as the main member of the Crown of Aragon at the very least until 1469. Is that clear enough to overcome your sarcasm?
As to the money issue..."and if were true" you say.....freudian slip? LOL
http://www.abc.es/local-aragon/20141021/abci-independencia-catalua-nunca...
And, about the money issues, is that all your answer? I explained that taxes rates are the same for all regions. People and companies pay depending on their income or benefits. It's normal industrial and financial areas agregate more taxes than low developed country areas, the geographical distribution of income explains that. TERRITORIES DO NOT PAY TAXES. IT'S PEOPLE AND COMPANIES. Tax rates and laws are the same for all spanish regions.
But none of this is actually relevant, please recheck data about debt and deficit of regional catalonian gov.
BTW. EU comission about corruption and Quality of government in Europe.
http://www.vozbcn.com/extras/pdf/20120700regionalgovernancematters.pdf
Check map at page 10.
About the money issues, here you have my answer, page 17 and beyond
http://www.irla.cat/documents/balances_fiscals.pdf
About the former independence of Catalonia:
If in 1137 there was a dynastic union between the Kingdom of Aragon and the County of Barcelona (to whom the other catalan counties owed feudal allegiance) and no permission by the Frankish Kings was required it means that by that time the County of Barcelona was an independent entity, as it actually was since the end of the 9th century. The ABC newspaper article, like most things about Catalonia written by that biased paper, is simply not true.
Once the Crown of Aregon was created, remember it was a dynastic union. I do not know whether you know that a dynastic union is NOT a country, it is a sort of confederation "avant la lettre", that is each member mantained its institutions. Moreover, it was the Catalan side, and kings, of the Crown of Aragon that were the de facto capital of the crown, Barcelona was the main city and economic power, the expansion in the mediterranean was done by catalan kings who spoke catalan and not spanish, institutions like the Consell de Cent or the Consolat de Mar were catalan creations, Aragon itself, did contribute little be it miitarily, economically or culturally. This ended 1412 with the Compromiso de Caspe and even more 1469 with the dynastic union of the Crown of Aragon with the Crown of Castile, but to pretend that Catalonia did not have and exercise statehood between the 10th and the 15th century, is simply not true.
Cataloinia is of great interest to me as an American.
When the club you involuntarily belong to keeps raising its weekly dues but provides no benefit of importance to you and has created a bad name for itself on top of it all, you naturally want to quit. This always sets the club 'owners' eyballs spinning,"Well, you can't just LEAVE. We've already spent your dues for the next fifty years and planned your future. If you leave, it will destroy the entire club. Nobody is allowed to leave!"
There is only so much blood the U.S. can squeeze from states like Texas and California before the people there see the negative benefits to being in 'the club' and decide stop paying their dues. I wouldn't be thrilled about the U.S. breaking up - I just want the arrogant pricks in Washington D.C. to understand how little benefit the federal government actually provides and how tenuous their 'ownership' of the people is in reality. And no - it doesn't count that the fed simply redistributes the money it initially takes from the states back to them. Americans are always keen to cut out the middleman.
The psychopaths running this place can't even concieve of the fact that the U.S. franchise is morally and fiscally bankrupt and that the people of any states would seriously want to leave. I say that with a little reservation though - someone obviously is paranoid enough to fund CENTCOM and the DHS Stazi.
We'll all be Catalonians some day. Show us how it's done, boys... we're taking notes here.
+100
Everyone should read that (loooong) post before falling in the "independence" hoax. Anyway, il illustrate the farce with a funny video.
LOL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ln0KZ3tLM2g
Notice it's not a comedy show. It's a "serious" political talk show broadcasted by the catalonian gov's public tv.
LOL
An interesting historical perspective. However, let's keep this simple. It is centralization vs. decentralization. History will show that the more centralized governments and banking, the more corruption. On the other hand, the more decentralized the authority the less corrupt behavior can dominate societal structure.
Obviously you are a fan of large centralized institutions that can have benefits though, IMO, the costs greatly outweigh the benefits in the long run.
Centralization does lead to the deterioration of a culture. Calling those who are for decentralized authority "separatists" appears to be a slur to me. What are they separating from, greater corruption?
Bad economy leads to discontent and then protests and then calls for more autonomy, then violent protests and revolution.
The chaos in the world grows everyday as economies begin to falter from unpayable debt and economic wars
Bad economy leads to discontent and then protests and then calls for more autonomy, then violent protests and revolution.
Then, typically, a more despotic and tyrannical government is installed to punish those damn successful (productive) people who were obviously attaining their success on the backs of the poor...and millions of people die as they can no longer ride the coattails of the producers who are now either dead or in prison.
Mr. Lincoln? Is that you?
"In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or violence, and there shall be none unless it be forced upon the national authority. The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere."
It's great when they don't mince words.
Sounds like Catalonia needs some American style freedom
It's called "Kinetic Democracy". Burn it into your brain, or they'll burn something else into your skull for you.
Reduce your gvt, you will be better off for it in the long run.
the usa will liberate the fuck out of them
The Catalonians are already thinking about how much fun it will be when forced by the EU Central Gubmint to accept a few hundred thousand Muslim refugees into their homes. These personal healthy and safety issues should be decided locally, not centrally.
In fact, they don't need refugees to islamize their cities. In last decades, nationalist gvernments in Catalonia have been promoting african and ME inmigration while blocking those from south america. They didn't like spanish speakng inmigrants.
Spanish national team will be shit without the Barcelona players
FREEEEEDOM
That means FC Barcelona would be out of spanish league and lead a Catalonian league, I suppose.
Just that fact is enough to cool down the secesionist delusion.
Run Texas from Obama and Hitlery
Yes - please, do leave, Texas. And take the rest of the Welfare South with you.
Then America truly will be beautiful.
My first down vote. It was not enough.
Was it good for you? Here, enjoy a cigarette.
"The army will "enforce the Constitution," ...look at that stuff right there. oh the irony
The army won't intervene, it's exactly what these nationalist victim-wannabees want. There are other ways. Just by exposing the endemic corruption of these nationalist coalition parties, their whole house of cards will crumble before the elections. What a way to fool people. Futile effort and they knew it.
How to make enemies and alienate people. Good luck with that course of action.
Here are some of the charming people that will be moving in with the Catalonians if the EU gets its way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2KhIZ8y0Mg
Communists are willing to kill you to protect themselves.
Western democracies are willing to kill you to protect you.
The 1950's want their boogie man back.
The US Govt is willing to kill you to protect themselves.
And YOU give the Communist Party Approved response to his remark about the communists. Nice, right out of Alinsky. No argument, just ridicule.
YOU are a well trained Useful Idiot. Congratulations. I'm sure this a personal best for you.
I wonder if it.will ever come to pass that our army enforces.our constitution.
No, but the opposite may prove to be true.
Our Army will cheerfully kill and maim those who cling to and revere the Constitution, or otherwise subscribe to the barbaric notion that it is, indeed, the Law of the Land.
Talk about waiving the red flag in the face of the Toro...
Stupid, no
Calculated provocation, si !
I'm Abraham Lincoln and I approve this message.
Smash it, kick it, knock it to the ground; all in the name of order!
I love how quickly Europe pivots to the position of "Obey or else" while at the same time claiming to be so 'sophisiticated' and socially polished compared to the rest of the barbarian outside world.
Yugoslavia v2.0..?
Muslims and jews brought culture to that place call Spain today. What did they get? expulsion.
Pedro Morenés is Abraham Lincoln and all he needs is a William Tecumseh Sherman to march through Catalonia, destroying everything in his path. Then he can institute martial law until the Catalonians are on their knees for the next century.
EU implosion!
What difference does it make, they would join the Euro anyway after independence. It really couldn't be less important for Catalans. It is, however, important for Spain that Catalunia stays in the country.
Sure?
UE treaty says the opposite. Many EU officials, PM's and law experts have recently stated the oposite recently. I'm sure you don't need references about this.
just check this onterview and see haw you're told "No" but shockingly you understand "Yes"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6fldMXI5z0
It's funny!!
This one (english subtitles) is not so funny
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEEfyE-kKP8
That's the shit you're herd with, and you love it.
Adelante Catalunia y al diablo con los fascistas y putos como el perro Franco que todavia no han entendido el futuro.
English, dude. English.
Operation "Jade Spaniard"...
And the rest of the NATO contingent and their Master(s) in North America and Brussels will eagerly be taking notes for like "tubulence" in their locals.
With the 700 point upshot in the market I'd say some major fun is about to begin with the flood of human traffic growing Western Europe with those among them "bearing gifts"... And "Operation Tower Tribute" for this Friday in Manhattan and Washington...
Time to rally the troops folks!
Tired of having a "system" forced on us by elites at all. System seems to be a name used to describe institutional slavery.
I've always said that "Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy" isn't a real Spanish conservative.
He's just yet another Euro-socialist masquerading as one and who doesn't believe in peoples' inalienable right to self determination. He has much in common with the British PM David Cameron, another big-state libtard.
The communist beer tent always had Mahou. Much better beer that that Cruz Campo... How do they vote?
The communist beer tent always had Mahou. Much better beer that that Cruz Campo... How do they vote?
Catalonia wins a short war with the EU, declares independence demands Russian protection
.
Installs short range nuclear weapons and builds new airfields for commerce and trade with Spain.
I'd bet my old buddy DANIEL MILLER is watching and drooling right now. Can't blame him.
Pity there are no Stukas to test this time around.
Hey, I got porn and beer and TV, therefore NOTHING IS WRONG.
"everyone fulfills their duty"... groveling on their knees to "Just Us" and their minions.
Wonder if the alphabet soup in DC is stupid enough to designate Catalonian voters as terrorists with their usual “nice sounding” propaganda “hate this group” classification and spin.