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 Galas wrote:
That is a constant here. In the "Diada" or independists Rallys, you have the central Goverment saying that they where something like 250k-300k people and the catalonian police and goverment saying that they where 1-2 million.

Personally, I tend to side with the numbers of the ones with more control and knowledge about that, in this kind of cases, the police.

Regardless of the 300k or million. A 300k person rally is still a fair number of people who want to protest a issue and act as Croy not just the larger percentage of non street believers.

This means there's a still large ernough movement that means Spain is well advised to talk it out like Scotland. Sure Sturgeon is annoying as hell at times and people Don t like her in some areas. But there is peace, and we did come to a ground that allowed the issue to tackled.

(modern political, independent, EU debates aside)

If Spain seriously meets them, let's them talk, both reach a deal things will end peacefully.

 jhe90 wrote:

 Galas wrote:
I don't think so. Probably, it had some influence, of course, but the continuation of the Franco Regime was totally imposible, for the organization and international interests of the members of the Falange and other levels of the regime administration.

A sad time for Spain. But at least we can laugh at it!

No Germans volunteering to help provide airforce?

We not here yet.

If the Civil War did break out. Trump will send troops to protect the Royal Government of Spain...
and the 'Last Ruling Bourbon King'... a perfect puppet to his... and the Central Government victory over seccessionists will intimidate Calexit at home. Failure to prevent a successful seccession in Spain will sure to favor the Calexit movements.

Calexit isn't happening. That's really a pipe dream.

Pseudomonas wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
He's pretty obviously using a very text book definition (political science one anyway), which in part defines nationalism as a cultural force with a sense of superiority over the "other" and under that definition it does go hand in hand with a certain degree of xenophobia and ethnocentrism.

Well that textbook clearly needs a new edition.

Well come on man. First off that Wiki article is tagged up the wazo with warnings like "misinterpreted citations," "previously unpublished" materials, and accusations of synthesis which tells me several things; this is either a very new idea, or a very fringe idea. Both men who are listed as having advocated it are dead by more than a century, which supports the fringe option given that both lived in the height of western nationalism and "civic nationalism" reads like a tautological shield term behind which people with unsavory or shoddy philosophy can hide. A visit to the talk page only worsens the situation cause people on it are either talking about which political parties are Civic Nationalist (listing most UK parties like SNP and UKIP, with the argument over the later really confirming my hypothesis that this is just shield term with no real substance behind it and an obscure one at that). The rest of the talk page amounts to accusations that the article constitutes "OR" (original research which Wikipedia doesn't allow) so basing your semantical arguments on this really weak article littered to the brim with obvious red flags says more about you than text books operating on classical politics.

And seriously;

 Iron_Captain wrote:

That is cherry picking. It is a fallacy and not conductive to a good discussion. If you want to have a polite, civilised discussion with people you will have to address all of their points, not just the ones you can use to strengthen your position or the ones you can turn into straw men. As Galas has found out, it usually leads to straw men and the whole discussion exaggerating and then focusing on something that is not actually part of the original discussion at all.

Are Iron Captain and me sort of on the same page with this one? Cause like damn. If that's not a giant warning that something has gone wrong I'm not sure what is

Lord Kragan wrote:

That's old news. Independentists always claimed 1+ million attendees while the authorities usually shaved it down to a third too. Hard for the authorities to do otherwise in this case.

It was an anti-Independence rally.

Lord Kragan wrote:
So... it is fine when you do the accusations (though you at least had the decency of just "imply" it) but not when others do a faaaar milder version?

No. What I ACTUALLY said is that if you're going to make accusations of xenophobia, then you should give a citation. i.e. evidence to support your accusation. "Put up or shut up".

If you have photos of Scottish Nationalists doing Nazi salutes, then by all means post them.

It's interesting that 150 years ago nationalism meant the Italian mini-states or the German mini-states grouping into a proper country, and now it means regions of large states wanting to split off.

Brazil also is infected with a nationalism of several states in the south, who use the general idea of "the north is robbing us" to inform their enthusiasm.

I find it strikingly ironic that Garabaldi, who was a power behind Italian conglomerative nationalism in the 1860s, was also a power behind the failed (at the time) souther-Brazilian nationalism which has recently come back in strength.

 Kilkrazy wrote:


Brazil also is infected with a nationalism of several states in the south, who use the general idea of "the north is robbing us" to inform their enthusiasm.

I swear I've heard of this before...

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

Lord Kragan wrote:
So... it is fine when you do the accusations (though you at least had the decency of just "imply" it) but not when others do a faaaar milder version?

No. What I ACTUALLY said is that if you're going to make accusations of xenophobia, then you should give a citation. i.e. evidence to support your accusation. "Put up or shut up".

If you have photos of Scottish Nationalists doing Nazi salutes, then by all means post them.

Nobody is talking here about Scotthis Nationalist. Really guys, you are the ones that have brought in a thread about Catalonian independence the Scottish one.

And xenophobia is not linked with a left or right ideology. I could look for more videos, articles, rallys and speeches of Catalonian politicians and their xenophobic narrative agaisn't the rest of Spain if you like, but to be honest, I can't encounter ones with english subtitles. They are all in catalan or spanish.

And yeah, theres a good bunch of spanish far-right Nostalgic Franco-Lovers out there that in times like this, take advantage of the situation to proclame themselves "Protectors of Spanish Unity". Something that only works in favour of the independentists narrative, because they can pick the one Franquists flag between 100 Spanish normal ones and say "See, see!? Spain is a bunch of fascists!"

 Iron_Captain wrote:

That is cherry picking. It is a fallacy and not conductive to a good discussion. If you want to have a polite, civilised discussion with people you will have to address all of their points, not just the ones you can use to strengthen your position or the ones you can turn into straw men.

Of course its cherry picking but given the constraints imposed by the layout of forums it is beneficial, it also ensures that posts are kept short. Its perfectly possible to have a civil and polite discussion, you just don't need to make a post full of quotes to do so.

As for the link is the first hit on google, how about the Oxford dictionary definition instead?

As I said already a desire for independence doesn't automatically equate with xenophobia or ignorance. Where is the strawman in that and I don't see why people are getting so irate about it either.

Pseudomonas has a point. Its also not conducive to a good discussion to post massive walls of text (Whirlwind for instance) that exhaust people's patience. Keep your posts concise and to the point.

 Galas wrote:
Something that only works in favour of the independentists narrative, because they can pick the one Franquists flag between 100 Spanish normal ones and say "See, see!? Spain is a bunch of fascists!"

Well, the fact the fascist flag is being waved by a police officer as he beats a 90 year old woman's face in for trying to vote while the other 100 stand around and try hard to pretend it's not happening might just be why...

As I said already a desire for independence doesn't automatically equate with xenophobia or ignorance.

Who said it did?

Where is the strawman in that and I don't see why people are getting so irate about it either.

I agree. I don't understand why the triad bout definitions started. I mean sure someone said "nationalist" and "xenophobic" in the same post but there was some reasons were given for why those conclusions were drawn. Reasons completely ignored. A cynical man might propose that the people jumping down someone's throat over word choice don't actually know anything about the big picture of politics in Spain, and are incapable of contributing to any civil or substantial discussion about it, but being the internet instead of shrugging and leaving or going off and doing some research said people just spout dictionary definitions and argue about that instead of the actual topic

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Galas wrote:
Something that only works in favour of the independentists narrative, because they can pick the one Franquists flag between 100 Spanish normal ones and say "See, see!? Spain is a bunch of fascists!"

Well, the fact the fascist flag is being waved by a police officer as he beats a 90 year old woman's face in for trying to vote while the other 100 stand around and try hard to pretend it's not happening might just be why...

I haven't seen the Police officer waving a fascists flag as he beats a 90 year old woman, but to be honest I'm not gonna say that it isn't possible because I'm aware that the Spanish Police has a very high percentage of nationalistic and in many case even Franquism supporters in their numbers.
As I said earlier, this is a case of two oligarchies seeding hate between the population for their personal political gains.

I'm not fan or defender of the actual goverment of Spain. Heck, I'm not even a supporter of the actual Spanish political system. But that doesn't makes me a supporter of independence. Because, the proposed independentists Catalonian goverment is exactly the same (And I'm not talking about "Omg both sides are equally bad), I'm saying that if you go and read their Constitution, just like Spain, they don't have the basic principles of a Democratic Republic. Representativeness and separation of powers.

Go, read the Catalonian Constitution, the judiciary power is literally under control of the executive power, just like it is in Spain. Not like it matters, the Catalonian Goverment has shown that they have no interest in respecting their own Constitution, just like no Spanish Goverment has respected our own constitution. Not like they should do it. Is a paper done in a office by a bunch of Franquists politicians.
The Spanish constitution is wet paper.

And thanks LordOfHats, you have expresed much better than me my own frustration about this conversation.

 Galas wrote:
The Spanish constitution is wet paper.

I've been looking over said Constitution (which isn't easy cause this thing is way more long winded than the comparatively brief US constitution), and the thing I've noticed is that the writers of the document seem to have assumed a lot more unity on the part of the Spanish population than there actually is. And by that I mean, the document seems to treat the ethnic divisions and historic regions of Spain as little more than convenient divisions of the polity, rather than major aspects of personal identity on the part of citizens. In my (very limited) experience, people in Spain take a lot from their regional identity even if they firmly believe in the unity of Spain, and that seems like an oversight when writing a document meant to govern people that someone ignored how important those identities are.

Yes no?

 LordofHats wrote:

 Galas wrote:
The Spanish constitution is wet paper.

I've been looking over said Constitution (which isn't easy cause this thing is way more long winded than the comparatively brief US constitution), and the thing I've noticed is that the writers of the document seem to have assumed a lot more unity on the part of the Spanish population than there actually is. And by that I mean, the document seems to treat the ethnic divisions and historic regions of Spain as little more than convenient divisions of the polity, rather than major aspects of personal identity on the part of citizens. In my (very limited) experience, people in Spain take a lot from their regional identity even if they firmly believe in the unity of Spain, and that seems like an oversight when writing a document meant to govern people that someone ignored how important those identities are.

Yes no?

Yeah, thats one of the smallest problems with our Constituton. The biggest one is that it wasn't done by a constituent assembly. It was done by Franquist politicians after a general election based in a non-representative system, and then a referendum was made for the population with the choice between voting YES to this constitution (With 0 decision power over what was in that Constitution. We couldn't even chose between a Monarchy or a Republic), or voting NO, that in the moment was labeled as "If you vote NO, we go back to Franquism".
And yes, the territorial division of Spain is more like the Brittish one of the Middle East. It wasn't made based in historical regions, respecting the cultural and regional identity. It was made to create administrative duplicities so they had places to give power and economic privileges to all the politicians who accepted the transition instead of a democratic break from Franco's regime.

Did you know that after years and years of having the Constituion as something sacred, it was modified in the Summer of 2011 (The last time it was modified was in 1992)? The article 135 was modified and changed so the payment of the public debt was the FIRST AND INMUTABLE economical priority of the nation. Not the basic human needs of the citizens, or the nation structures. The payment of the external public debt.

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reforma_constitucional_espa%C3%B1ola_de_2011

The reform had the support of the majority parties, Partido Popular and Partido Socialista Obrero Español, as well as by Union of the Navarro People. Since the PSOE and PP jointly have more than 90% of deputies and senators in that legislature, and the treaty of reform by the ordinary process, a referendum was not necessary; nor was it requested by 10% of the representatives of one of the chambers within the time limit, which concluded on September 26, 2011
However, the other parties represented in the Cortes Generales were dissatisfied with the reform in which, according to them, they had not been called to the negotiation, which led them to accuse both parties of "breaking the constituent process".

The PP (Partido Popular/ Popular Party) and the PSOE (Partido Socialista Obrero Español / Spanish Socialist Worker Party) the two that since the transition have been alternating one another in office (Basically our Republicans and Democrats) that can't NEVER agree in anything, voted in harmony to sell the economic sovereignty of Spain with night and treachery.

This is why I say that the Spanish constitution is wet paper. The problems of Spain, of this Independentists movements run much deeply than people normally assume. Every piece of the present Spanish political situation has his roots in the transition of 1975-1978. One needs to understand that transition to understand why Spain is the way it is today.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

Lord Kragan wrote:

That's old news. Independentists always claimed 1+ million attendees while the authorities usually shaved it down to a third too. Hard for the authorities to do otherwise in this case.

It was an anti-Independence rally.

So? The point still stands, the authorities cut the number they (the guys who made the rally) claimed to a third.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Pseudomonas has a point. Its also not conducive to a good discussion to post massive walls of text (Whirlwind for instance) that exhaust people's patience. Keep your posts concise and to the point.

No he hasn't. There's a difference between Whirlwinds rants that are entirely baseless by and large and actually formed, well spaced and structured commentary.

 LordofHats wrote:

I don't understand why the triad bout definitions started.

Neither do I. The reason why the definition of nationalism needs to be updated though is Scottish independence, which is entirely nationalist (and called such consistently by all sides) yet is very much inclusive and civic. That is why I have an issue with calling nationalist xenophobic, as I have already stated.

Not to worry though, I have remembered by I stopped posting on politics boards.

 Galas wrote:
Yeah, thats one of the smallest problems with our Constituton. The biggest one is that it wasn't done by a constituent assembly.

I'd say those issues are innately related. The Franquists were hard core nationalists. It seems natural that they'd underestimate the significance of regional identity and background. leaving open holes for problems to fill later down the line. Certainly if the centralized political apparatus of Spain continues in that spirit, then the problem might perpetuate, producing say a situation where the Spanish state responds with a horribly heavy hand to an independence vote that could have been better handled with a much lighter touch.

So yeah it seems like the roots here go way back.

Did you know that after years and years of having the Constituion as something sacred, it was modified in the Summer of 2011 (The last time it was modified was in 1992)? The article 135 was modified and changed so the payment of the public debt was the FIRST AND INMUTABLE economical priority of the nation. Not the basic human needs of the citizens, or the nation structures. The payment of the external public debt.

Well my understanding is that Spain's debt issues coming out of the 2008 recessions were growing rapidly, and that the recovery within the country was less than ideal (particularly because Spain has always had some of the worst employment rates of Western European nations, an issue it had been making great strides in fixing until the recession basically demolished all progress). If I remember right lots of people were comparing Spain's economic outlook to Greece around that time with concerns that the later's problem would rapidly appear in the former, and in that light a response like that doesn't strike me as horribly unreasonable. A bit radical, but understandably so. Without doubt complete economic collapse is going to make the basic human needs of citizens and national structures even harder to meet.

jhe90 wrote:That's the German lefts fault.
They obviously got complacent and not dealt with what's fueling them.

Theres very real issues. And unpleasant or unpopular, you'll have to face them to end there threat. Or just ignore them.... Because that's gonna fail badly.

Nah, it's all of them, even the centre left and centre right parties have move to the right (especially when it comes to economic issues) so the left followed them. The issue is that nobody dares to offer actual leftist policies like raising the taxes a bit and improving the social safety net and services, instead we get austerity, some more austerity, and more cuts to social services. As long as the economy looks good nobody gives a feth about the population. Greece was the first example with a harsh shift to the right after the 2008 recession and nothing but austerity to help them. When all parties just kinda stumble around without offering the population any tangible support and only the far right says something that appeals to the population (not matter how wrong it is) the population will react to that and vote for right wing parties (either because the talking points appeal to them, somebody actually talks about caring for them, or as a protest). And the reaction from all other parties was to shift more to the right because that's what they think voters want.

But otherwise it's correct: All the parties got complacent, ignored the issues, and then were surprised when people didn't vote for them anymore. Then they react like they were entitled to those votes (see: Greece, Brexit, Trump, and the general rise in right wing parties all over the developed world).

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Pseudomonas has a point. Its also not conducive to a good discussion to post massive walls of text (Whirlwind for instance) that exhaust people's patience. Keep your posts concise and to the point.

True, but that is what spoiler tags are for. Usually these massive walls of texts come to be when a discussion between 2 (or sometimes) more people drags on. You could put that whole debate into spoiler tags while keeping your post limited to just your arguments. And yeah, there is also a big difference between long 'wall-of-text' rants and a well structured argument presented in a good layout. Both may be long, but the last one is clearly readable and makes sense, while the first one does neither.

 LordofHats wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

That is cherry picking. It is a fallacy and not conductive to a good discussion. If you want to have a polite, civilised discussion with people you will have to address all of their points, not just the ones you can use to strengthen your position or the ones you can turn into straw men. As Galas has found out, it usually leads to straw men and the whole discussion exaggerating and then focusing on something that is not actually part of the original discussion at all.

Are Iron Captain and me sort of on the same page with this one? Cause like damn. If that's not a giant warning that something has gone wrong I'm not sure what is

Soon you will be one with Mother Russia, comrade....

Any atchual updates on the situation. The president. Aimed Monday now did he do anything?

Any independence claims?

 jhe90 wrote:
Any atchual updates on the situation. The president. Aimed Monday now did he do anything?

Any independence claims?

Today is the day he'll make an address.

The update is that meanwhile every meaningful business with their legal address in Catalonia has upped sticks and moved to Madrid, Valencia, etc. Barcelona region used to be the 2nd with the highest number of companies in the IBEX-35 stock exchange is now left with a single one (Grifols, a pharma company, but they have warned they'll also move if the situation starts interfering with their business), their combined turnover is almost 40% of the Catalan GDP (though of course these are multinational companies, and a lot of it is generated outside Catalonia and Spain). This has brought to a halt to most independence-related activities, and a huge part of the independence supporters who were promised the dream of a Switzerland in the Med are now now looking at the Montréal effect:

http://www.heraldscotland.com/business_hq/13170833.The_Montreal_effect/

Both Catalan major banks, all energy and infrastructure companies have left for quieter shores. It remains to be seen if it's for good, but they've sent a powerful message to indy supporters. Basically that all your jobs are on the line.

This has strained relations between the hastily assembled pro-indy coalition. The ruling party was Junts pel Sí, itself a coalition of the main pro-Indy parties:
- CiU, which itself previously split between the pro-indy Convergencia and anti-Indy Unió. Basically your run-of-the-mill centre-right tories with a vaguely traditionalist, pro-business, etc. line, kind of a tories.cat
- ERC, the labour equivalent of the above. Who at least have been pro-Indy the whole time while CiU only found support for independence when their leaders were caught with their hands on the public purse (google Pujol + corruption)
- IxC, generally to the left of ERC, euro-commies who were once within the IU umbrella but that also experienced a split when they embraced pro-indy ideas.

They accounted for slightly under 40% at the last elections.

Then there's the CUP, a quasi-anarchist anti-capitalist party who got something like 8% of the vote. Their closest parallel would be a hardline Sinn Fein, in that they don't run for state elections since they don't recognize the Spanish parliament.

You can imagine that the relationship between the CUP and the two most important parties that made up JxSi is now severely impacted by the decision of these companies to move out. Traditionally the supporters of CiU were the solid middle and upper-middle class with cushy jobs in those banks, insurance and infrastructure companies that have announced they're leaving or that they have plans for leaving, while the CUP is exactly where they wanted to be: in charge of the streets and leading a popular revolution against the evil plutocrats. Several ministers have say ok, maybe it's time to slow this time but the CUP have smelled blood and the word "traitors" has been uttered a few times.

Yesterday was the day originally stated for declaring independence, but the Supreme Court cancelled the Parliament session (since indy was on the menu), so Pres. Puigdemont will make a Parliamentary address today. All bets are off on what he'll say but very likely it will be a wishy-washy watered-down version of an indy declaration that would let them save face in front of their CUP partners (and hardline indy supporters) and at the same time stem the flow of companies making their way outside.

I definitely wouldn't like to be the speech writer for Puigdemont today.

LordofHats wrote:I've been looking over said Constitution (which isn't easy cause this thing is way more long winded than the comparatively brief US constitution), and the thing I've noticed is that the writers of the document seem to have assumed a lot more unity on the part of the Spanish population than there actually is. And by that I mean, the document seems to treat the ethnic divisions and historic regions of Spain as little more than convenient divisions of the polity, rather than major aspects of personal identity on the part of citizens. In my (very limited) experience, people in Spain take a lot from their regional identity even if they firmly believe in the unity of Spain, and that seems like an oversight when writing a document meant to govern people that someone ignored how important those identities are.

Yes no?

It depends. Spain constitution is a kind of middle ground between openly federal states (Germany, US, Russia) and centralised Jacobin states like France. Article 2 talks about the "unity of the nation" but at the same time says it recognises and guarantees the right to autonomy of the nationalities contained within.

It's all a bit of arguing about names because in the real world Spanish "Autonomous Communities" have substantial devolved powers, in places higher than German Länder or UK devolved parliaments (though seemingly not as high as US States).

I definitely wouldn't like to be the speech writer for Puigdemont today.

Actually from Puigdemont's perspective there is an effective strategy. He should not declare UDI here and now.
In his shoes I would create a 'roadmap to independence' saying the vote was won, 90%, etc etc, Catalonia will be free and now we prepare a transition for independence in say 2020.
The intention is to trigger an overreaction from Madrid, threat of direct rule, or some such.
he more you take away a freedom the more people want it. If flatly denied then it becomes an imperative stronger than the economic argument.

 Orlanth wrote:

In his shoes I would create a 'roadmap to independence' saying the vote was won, 90%, etc etc, Catalonia will be free and now we prepare a transition for independence in say 2020.
The intention is to trigger an overreaction from Madrid, threat of direct rule, or some such.
he more you take away a freedom the more people want it. If flatly denied then it becomes an imperative stronger than the economic argument.

Which is why the CUP has been gaining momentum, and preying on discontent voters from ERC and even CiU aren't going all in. The question is how big that demography is.

Because if in the best case scenario you're looking at a 35-45% pro-Indy voters of all kinds, and a good bunch of those genuinelly voted indy because they thought they would be better off.

There are thousands of indy voters working in the Banc Sabadell, Caixabanc, Aguas de Barcelona, Oryzon..... etc. According to a piece in today's 5 días:

https://cincodias.elpais.com/cincodias/2017/10/09/mercados/1507546999_053961.html

Catalonia is no longer Spain's wealthiest region and has lost 0,33% of its GDP just on the HQ shifts. Now imagine what will happen when those companies start executing the actual contingency plans and tell these very independentist Catalans that their job has moved to Madrid, Zaragoza or Valencia.

I'm lucky enough to be a Catalan speaker (from a neighboring region), my wife is Catalan and I have my fair share of indy supporters in social media. The silence from the time the first companies started to announce their plans to get out has been deafening. You know the only ones that are still banging the independence drum? Those on the government dime. Teachers, admin staff, etc. who right or wrong believe their job is not on the line.

jouso wrote:

 jhe90 wrote:
Any atchual updates on the situation. The president. Aimed Monday now did he do anything?

Any independence claims?

Today is the day he'll make an address.

The update is that meanwhile every meaningful business with their legal address in Catalonia has upped sticks and moved to Madrid, Valencia, etc. Barcelona region used to be the 2nd with the highest number of companies in the IBEX-35 stock exchange is now left with a single one (Grifols, a pharma company, but they have warned they'll also move if the situation starts interfering with their business), their combined turnover is almost 40% of the Catalan GDP (though of course these are multinational companies, and a lot of it is generated outside Catalonia and Spain). This has brought to a halt to most independence-related activities, and a huge part of the independence supporters who were promised the dream of a Switzerland in the Med are now now looking at the Montréal effect:

http://www.heraldscotland.com/business_hq/13170833.The_Montreal_effect/

Both Catalan major banks, all energy and infrastructure companies have left for quieter shores. It remains to be seen if it's for good, but they've sent a powerful message to indy supporters. Basically that all your jobs are on the line.

This has strained relations between the hastily assembled pro-indy coalition. The ruling party was Junts pel Sí, itself a coalition of the main pro-Indy parties:
- CiU, which itself previously split between the pro-indy Convergencia and anti-Indy Unió. Basically your run-of-the-mill centre-right tories with a vaguely traditionalist, pro-business, etc. line, kind of a tories.cat
- ERC, the labour equivalent of the above. Who at least have been pro-Indy the whole time while CiU only found support for independence when their leaders were caught with their hands on the public purse (google Pujol + corruption)
- IxC, generally to the left of ERC, euro-commies who were once within the IU umbrella but that also experienced a split when they embraced pro-indy ideas.

They accounted for slightly under 40% at the last elections.

Then there's the CUP, a quasi-anarchist anti-capitalist party who got something like 8% of the vote. Their closest parallel would be a hardline Sinn Fein, in that they don't run for state elections since they don't recognize the Spanish parliament.

You can imagine that the relationship between the CUP and the two most important parties that made up JxSi is now severely impacted by the decision of these companies to move out. Traditionally the supporters of CiU were the solid middle and upper-middle class with cushy jobs in those banks, insurance and infrastructure companies that have announced they're leaving or that they have plans for leaving, while the CUP is exactly where they wanted to be: in charge of the streets and leading a popular revolution against the evil plutocrats. Several ministers have say ok, maybe it's time to slow this time but the CUP have smelled blood and the word "traitors" has been uttered a few times.

Yesterday was the day originally stated for declaring independence, but the Supreme Court cancelled the Parliament session (since indy was on the menu), so Pres. Puigdemont will make a Parliamentary address today. All bets are off on what he'll say but very likely it will be a wishy-washy watered-down version of an indy declaration that would let them save face in front of their CUP partners (and hardline indy supporters) and at the same time stem the flow of companies making their way outside.

I definitely wouldn't like to be the speech writer for Puigdemont today.

LordofHats wrote:I've been looking over said Constitution (which isn't easy cause this thing is way more long winded than the comparatively brief US constitution), and the thing I've noticed is that the writers of the document seem to have assumed a lot more unity on the part of the Spanish population than there actually is. And by that I mean, the document seems to treat the ethnic divisions and historic regions of Spain as little more than convenient divisions of the polity, rather than major aspects of personal identity on the part of citizens. In my (very limited) experience, people in Spain take a lot from their regional identity even if they firmly believe in the unity of Spain, and that seems like an oversight when writing a document meant to govern people that someone ignored how important those identities are.

Yes no?

It depends. Spain constitution is a kind of middle ground between openly federal states (Germany, US, Russia) and centralised Jacobin states like France. Article 2 talks about the "unity of the nation" but at the same time says it recognises and guarantees the right to autonomy of the nationalities contained within.

It's all a bit of arguing about names because in the real world Spanish "Autonomous Communities" have substantial devolved powers, in places higher than German Länder or UK devolved parliaments (though seemingly not as high as US States).

Ok, so he is forced to back down and fudge some kind of deal with Madrid.

well tthis seems the only way or his position could even be maintained, Maybe Madrid force a election and get him removed quietly as such. you can't act like a thug butt you can remove him safely by using the systeems of state against him.

The pressue of the companies, well yes that's ggoing to erdode the support. it comes down to peoples lives. jobs, a well orgnised campaign by Madrid friendly parties could work.

Lastly, though after 900 people got beaten up or near on i don't think that Spain would be advised to push too hard, more let things work against him. Direct force is only going to inflame things worse, and a coller, more chess minded strategy is far more effective.

I still think Spain has made a huge mistake in how they handled it And forced Catalonia away from Madrid for a good few years. it wwill be a slowr process to rebuild trust between the two parliments.

 Orlanth wrote:

I definitely wouldn't like to be the speech writer for Puigdemont today.

Actually from Puigdemont's perspective there is an effective strategy. He should not declare UDI here and now.
In his shoes I would create a 'roadmap to independence' saying the vote was won, 90%, etc etc, Catalonia will be free and now we prepare a transition for independence in say 2020.
The intention is to trigger an overreaction from Madrid, threat of direct rule, or some such.
he more you take away a freedom the more people want it. If flatly denied then it becomes an imperative stronger than the economic argument.

I disagree entirely. The economic argument wins, and the illusion of freedom can go cry in a corner.
Catalan independence isn't going to create Happy Fun Fantabulous Land, and I'd hope people would be smart enough to realize it.

Not that freedom is an issue in this mess anyway. Having Catalan something something rather than Spain something something as the recognized tippy-top government has zero to do with freedom.

Brexit and Trump happened. Economic arguments are very easy to defeat by populism.

Tyran wrote:
Brexit and Trump happened. Economic arguments are very easy to defeat by populism.

Populism that promised days of wine and roses vs project fear. But now the fear is real.

It's one thing to be told that the country will experience an economic downturn and another completely different thing that you or someone you love will be made redundant because the politicians you voted for didn't tell the whole story.

It's popcorn time anyway, Pres. Puigdemont makes the address in one minute. Edit pushed back one hour, the Indy camp are still negotiating with each other.

https://twitter.com/catalannews/status/917807285430292480

Puigdemont: "We propose to suspend the declaration of independence for a few weeks, to open a period of dialogue"

Countrylets when will they learn?

Anyone else watch the live feed? Is Puigdemont done politically? CUP was not happy at all.